Out On Our Own Now
by Twisted Flame
Summary: My shot at the pilot of a Charmed Sons spinoff. Chris and Wyatt are continuing the Halliwell's destiny, but with their new place comes new trouble. What's praying on male witches in the dead of night? And, more importantly, are they next?
1. Prologue

Hey. Um… hey. I've been poking around on the Internet which, as I'm sure you'll all know if you've done this, never really leads to anything good. Heh. I've found myself a couple of Wyatt and Chris spin off fics and other stuff and it just seemed like a good idea to have a go. This is what I consider the pilot of the series, which is, as of yet, to get a name. That's how well I've thought this through. Whoops.

Anyway, I just thought I'd throw this out there. This is set in the changed future. Chris is twenty-one and Wyatt is twenty-three. Pretty much everything else is self-explanatory or will be explained within the fic.

**Disclaimer: **Not only do I own nothing to do with _Charmed_, I don't intend to claim that I do. This is a work of fiction; I'm not gaining any profit from doing this, unless you count a happy feeling which, sadly, won't be adding any zeroes to my bank account any time soon.

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**1x01 — Pilot: Out on Our Own Now**

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_**Henry Jenkins rolled over in bed and squinted through the glare of the alarm clock to see the numbers. It was a little after three in the morning. He screwed up his face, rubbing his eyes and rolling onto his back. His throat was dry as a bone. He contemplated trying to get back to sleep but quickly gave up. He smiled at his sleeping girlfriend and breathed a gentle kiss against her cheek, shoving the comforter off him. He quietly padded his way out of the bedroom and into the living area outside, yawning and stretching as he made his way to the kitchen. 

Darkness enveloped the whole apartment but he had lived there a while and was well-practised with the layout, able to expertly skirt the small breakfast bar that separated the kitchen from the main living space even though it could barely be seen in the dim light filtering through the window above the sink. On the same wall as the window all of the kitchen cabinets and appliances were lined up. The kitchen — hell, the whole place — was small but functional, and he could just about handle functional.

Instead of turning on the light, he opened the fridge door and jammed a spoon between the door and the appliance so that it couldn't close, allowing light to spill out from within it enough for him to see what he was doing. The yellow-tinged glow from the little bulb inside the fridge glinted on the silver charm dangling from around his neck and the small crystal set in it.

Behind him, the dim light played across the shadows of the room and they seemed to shift, flitting to deeper cover. With his back to the main apartment, however, he just grabbed a glass from the drainer and shoved it under the water dispenser on the freezer, filling the glass to the brim and taking a huge gulp.

A floorboard squeaked beyond the kitchen in the living area and he turned quickly, accidentally slopping icy water over his bare feet. He swore and snatched for a dishcloth, tossing it to the tiles and shoving it around with his now-decidedly-chilly foot to mop up the spill.

"Jen?" he called into the darkness, setting his glass on the breakfast bar and bending down to retrieve the cloth, straightening up and absently throwing it into the sink. "Jen?" he asked again, receiving nothing but deafening silence that rang in his ears. Another floorboard squeaked and he felt his heart quicken. "Jen, come on. You know I hate this sneaking and creeping stuff… Knock it off." He paused, waiting for his girlfriend to reveal herself. More silence. He stumbled across the kitchen to the light switch and flicked it.

Bright overhead lights snapped on across the entire apartment and he barely had time to turn before something that moved so fast that it was a blur leapt out of the darkness at him and slammed him back into the wall, driving the air out of him. He grunted and was then suddenly aware that he was being lifted off his feet. Panicked, he started to yell and struggle, managing to glimpse the face of his captor, who was wearing a black ninja-style mask over their face that revealed nothing but glowing yellow eyes.

His yell was cut off as he was tossed across the apartment, slamming into his easy chair hard enough to snap the back off. His blow cushioned by the padded leather that had been his favourite chair, he was able to recover quickly and rolled so that he was ducked in front of the couch, hoping that the back of the piece of furniture would conceal him. Why had he turned on the lights…?

He looked down at the pendant, which was hanging in midair because of the crouch he was in, whirling wildly and the usually white crystal was glowing red. "Thanks for the warning," he hissed bitterly at it, panic and his pounding heart hitching his voice in his throat. More footsteps. He swallowed, gripping the chain of the necklace so that the pendant was dangling in front of him and stood up suddenly.

The masked figure, dressed also all in black, was in front of him in a supernaturally-fast flash but recoiled slightly at the sight of the pendant glowing blood-red at it. It hissed, and something behind the mask shifted and, as he looked into the yellow eyes, he realised that the figure was pulling a snarl. He began a familiar incantation, locking his brown eyes with the yellow ones of the intruder.

"_Spirit of Light, course through my home._

_Safety's gone and evil roams._

_Protect me from this evil force_

_That's—"_

He was so absorbed in his spell and so satisfied with the masked intruder's hissing at the sound of it that he didn't hear more footsteps behind him. He was suddenly aware of gloved fingers scrabbling at the nape of his neck but reacted too late and the chain of his necklace was yanked backwards so violently that it burnt his shoulder and slammed the fist clutching at it into his Adam's apple. His fist dropped the pendant to his chest quickly as he doubled over, choking from the blow to his throat.

The figure behind him continued pulling on the necklace and then twisted it, garrotting him. Desperate hands scrabbled to loosen the chain but it was being pulled too tight to get his fingers underneath it for leverage. Something warm began to run down his bare torso and, looking down through a fast-approaching oxygen-deprivation haze, he saw a rivulet of blood meandering its way across his flesh as the chain of the necklace began to cut into his neck.

The figure choking him yanked upwards, pulling him back up to his full height and arching his back towards it whilst the figure in front of him produced a large, silver, serrated athame. A silver dragon coiled its way around the ebony hilt, ending near the top with a red jewel clamped in its snarling jaws.

The first figure jammed the athame into his abdomen viciously, thrusting upwards to enter the ribcage and twisting. Henry gasped, wanting to put his hands to the wound but the lack of air had weakened his muscles and his arms barely twitched. The figure behind him yanked the necklace one last time, snapping the chain. The pendant was catapulted from the chain and shot across the room, bouncing on the boarded floor and coming to rest under the credenza that was in front of the breakfast bar, still glowing red.

Finally able to breathe and finally not being held up anymore, Henry dropped to his knees, taking in deep rattling breaths. He fell onto his side, his face screwed up in pain. Now able to move his arms he pressed his hand to the wound in his stomach, feeling his fingers become slick and slippery with blood as it wormed its slimy way through his fingers, stealing away his life with it.

"Honey?"

Henry turned, seeing Jennifer come to the door in her negligée, squinting against the bright lights of the living area after the darkness of the bedroom. Her eyes had barely adjusted and she just about had time to see her boyfriend on the floor slowly bleeding out before a third figure seemed to materialise from the shadows in the corner of the room and drag her back by the hair as she raced across the room towards him, placing both of its hands on her head and twisting. An audible snap echoed through the apartment, hanging on the air.

"Jen!" Henry cried, the force of his yell spraying blood from his lips. "Jen…" he repeated but quieter, resigned, as his girlfriend seemed to fall in slow motion towards the floor, eventually collapsing dead to the exposed boards with a dull thud. "Jen…" he whispered, tears forming in his eyes.

"Oh please, witch. You'll be with her soon," the masked figure still holding the bloody athame snapped, bending down and wiping the blade clean on Henry's pyjama pants. It looked up and nodded at the two companions and they all turned as one and slithered into the shadows milling around the bedroom door.

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_End of Teaser.  
__Credits, Commercial Break._

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End my nail-biting and insecurity! Was it good? Was it bad? I won't know unless you tell me!_


	2. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **Chris and Wyatt Halliwell and the entire concept of _Charmed _are not mine. This is a work of fanfiction not intended to make a profit. Just so y'all know.

I got some great reviews. Thank you everyone very much. I'm going to get right on with replying to those.

Chris Halliwell gnawed absently on his bottom lip, staring intently at the tiled wall above the coffeemaker without actually seeing it, waiting for it to be done. Boxes littered the floor around his feet, restricting his movements. The story was repeated throughout the apartment as the kitchen tile gave way to the decidedly lacklustre carpet. Boxes were stacked up to four high everywhere, towering over the randomly-positioned items of furniture in the room and completely taking over the couch, which had disappeared beneath boxes shortly after being placed there that morning.

Sunlight spilled into the room through the three sash windows on the back wall of the apartment, filtering through dust particles that the move had tossed into the air. To the left of the windows and directly behind him was a bathroom. To the right of the windows were two doors leading to two bedrooms. The necessary two bedrooms. Chris and Wyatt were brothers, sure, but Siamese? Not in this lifetime.

The door to the apartment, directly facing the windows on the back wall and on the same wall that Chris was staring at waiting for the coffeemaker opened, revealing his blond brother, Wyatt, who was balancing a cardboard box on his hip and had what looked like a newspaper clutched in his other hand.

Panting slightly, Wyatt set the box down gently on the floor and then kicked it so that it skidded across the carpet to bump gently into others already piled in the room. "Oh, man. Those stairs. Seriously, would an elevator break the bank?" he groused, exhaling heavily and crossing the room. He tossed the paper onto the misshapen pile that hid the couch and walked to the first bedroom, opening the door and disappearing inside.

"Is that the last of the boxes?" Chris yelled over his shoulder at his brother.

"Yup. No more boxes, no more removal guys," Wyatt called back from inside the bedroom. He came to the door and leant against the doorjamb. "I've paid them, I've tipped them and I've sent them on their merry way. It's just us now, bro."

Chris pulled a face. "Oh, God. Don't. That's…"

"Exhilarating?" Wyatt asked with a grin, pushing himself from the doorjamb and opening the door to the second bedroom. "Liberating?" he continued, his voice muffled as he left the room. "Apron-string slicing?"

"Terrifying," Chris muttered quietly, twisting his mouth in thought. It still hadn't quite hit him that he and Wyatt were now in Rochester, as in Rochester, New York. It was a far cry from San Francisco, California and he didn't just mean the climate. He couldn't believe how huge this was and he was telling the truth: it did terrify him. He was three entire time zones away from home. Even though this had been his dream, college on the East Coast, and even though, starting this fall, he'd be a junior at the University of Rochester… He shook his head. It was just new, he reassured himself; that was all. He'd adjust.

"What's so scary?" Wyatt wondered, coming out of the bedroom and clearing a space to sit on the couch. It creaked as he settled into it and flipped the paper over, turning to the back and the sports.

"You heard that?" Chris asked, slightly unnerved. He glanced at the coffeemaker. It had been a housewarming gift from his aunt Paige. For some unfathomable reason, the electronic list she'd put out for wedding gifts had malfunctioned, refusing to accept that someone had bought them a coffeemaker. She'd ended up with six of the things, and they were her housewarming gift of choice. Phoebe had been given an identical one when she last moved. However, although still boxed as the day she had received it, there was no denying that it was about fifteen years old, which meant that it lacked absolutely any speed, although _did_ manage to make coffee better than any new machine he'd ever tasted coffee from.

Wyatt craned his neck around to give Chris an incredulous look over his shoulder. He tapped the side of his head. "Chris, you think as if you're thinking through a megaphone. Yeah, I heard that." He paused. The paper rustled. "Oh, by the way, that room is mine." He pointed to the second one that he had come out of. "I call that one."

Chris was about to shrug and agree with Wyatt when suspicion began to niggle at him and he narrowed his eyes. "That's the smaller room…" he said slowly. "You've _never _had the smaller room… What gives with the sudden generosity?"

Wyatt shrugged, opening his mouth but then closing it again, shaking his head. "I was gonna say something about how I thought my little brother deserved a break, but you'd totally call me on that. Yeah, that room only has two suspicious-looking stains on the carpet. Your new room as at least four."

Chris wrinkled his nose. "Gee, thanks Wyatt," he intoned dryly. "Whatever would I do without you looking out for me?"

Wyatt only grinned and shrugged again, and Chris's retort was cut off by the coffeemaker gurgling one last time to signal that it was done. The dark-haired witch-whitelighter sagged with relief and snatched the pot from the machine. What a day. What a day. He was completely exhausted and groaned in sudden frustration when he realised that he had no idea which box held the mugs he needed to make the cup of coffee his body had been demanding for seemingly hours now.

"Wyatt, which box are the mugs in?" Chris inquired, looking down hopelessly at the sea of taped-up cardboard that held their entire lives.

"The one marked 'Kitchen'," Wyatt replied distractedly, still immersed in the newspaper. "Mom wrapped them all in about five layers of bubble wrap, remember? She was transferring her desire to do the same to us onto anything that might even chip when it was moved."

"Yeah, but which box did she put them in?" Chris asked.

"The one marked 'Kitchen'…?" Wyatt reiterated. "What are you, deaf?" the blond asked into the paper. His mouth quirked into a sly grin before he added, "Or is it that you're terminally stupid?"

"No, it's just that I leant to count oh, I don't know, in preschool," Chris bit back tersely, rapidly descending into irritation. "Let's see how many boxes we have here marked 'Kitchen', shall we? One, two, three. Oh, look: four, five… six. Seven, eight and, would you believe it, one more! Nine! Nine 'Kitchen' boxes. Anymore bright ideas?"

"Jeez, Chris, chill. We've got to get you off The Bean," Wyatt joked, putting the paper down and getting up from the couch to give his little brother a hand before the snarling caffeine-monster was well and truly released.

Chris realised that he was still holding the carafe of coffee and, unwilling to prove Wyatt right, he gently slid it back onto the machine before his brother had made his way over to him. He turned and spread out his arms uselessly at the mess that served as a kitchen, devoid of the energy to do anything else.

Wyatt crouched down next to a box and held out his hand. "Box cutter!" he demanded of Chris in his best dramatic voice. He turned his head, beckoning to his brother and raising his eyebrows. "C'mon, Chris. Stat!"

Chris blinked, wondering if it was at all possible that the hospital had mixed him up at birth and, in fact, he wasn't actually related to Wyatt at all. He shook his head and rolled his eyes, snatching the box cutter from the counter and slapping it into Wyatt's outstretched hand. "Box cutter," he intoned tiredly, watching Wyatt slit the tape holding the flaps of the box. "What's the prognosis, Nurse Wyatt?"

"We're losing her!" Wyatt responded theatrically, digging through the box's innards. He pulled a face when he failed to find the mugs. "Eh," he said with a shrug. "She's gone to a better place now." He shoved the box across the floor and pulled a new one towards him. "Next!"

"Why is it a she?" Chris mused, leaning against the counter and watching Wyatt. "Did we sexually discriminate against male boxes?"

Wyatt didn't answer, just ended another fruitless rummage and retracted the box cutter, standing up and tossing it back onto the counter in annoyance. "I can't be bothered with this…" He took a quick glance around the apartment, still half-afraid that he hadn't actually left his mother at home, and waved a hand. "Mugs!" he called. Six swirling masses of orbing lights appeared in midair above a box and he directed them over to the counter where they reformed into bubble-wrap swaddled mugs. The contents of the box that they had orbed from, now apparently lacking a foundation, shifted profoundly with worrying thuds and Wyatt winced, fearing that he'd broken something.

Chris grinned gleefully, already attacking the bubble wrap and tape surrounding the mug nearest to him. "Persona—" he began to chide automatically, but was cut off by Wyatt.

"Nope. Don't even say it," Wyatt commanded, cutting Chris off with a levelled index finger. "I've had a very hard day. The last thing I need is my baby brother to spontaneously combust from lack of caffeine. I mean, I wouldn't be able to afford the rent if that happened, and then I'd have to move back home, where Mom would send me totally rubber-room-nuts and that would be the end of the Twice Blessed Witch, and The Powers That Be soooo don't want that now, do they?"

Chris cocked his head, impressed. "Huh. You know, from your test scores, you wouldn't know that you were, well, _capable_ of thought but it actually looks like you think too much," the brunette teased with a smile, turning to pour himself a mug of coffee and bringing it to his lips, scorching all of the taste buds from his tongue in his hurry to drink it.

Wyatt snagged a wrapped mug from the counter and began to pick at its bindings. "Real funny, Chris," he replied dryly, finally loosening the tape and dropping it in a wad to the floor. "Your hilarity shows right here in my face," he continued, giving Chris a deadpan look before pouring his own mug of coffee.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Here was me thinking that the only thing your face ever showed was that you were missing a couple of chromosomes," Chris returned sunnily, slipping past Wyatt and into the living area before his brother could retaliate. He put his coffee down on a box and perched uncertainly on half of the box spring that was eventually going to be his bed. He picked up Wyatt's paper, registering mild surprise at the headline. "The local museum was broken into early last night, not long after closing time," he informed Wyatt, the light-heartedness dropping out of his tone. "The only thing missing was a new addition to the collection that the museum wasn't even sure was worth anything…"

"I guess they know that it was worth something now…" Wyatt said vaguely with a frown, settling back down and trying to see around Chris's fingers to look at the football results. "If someone was willing to go to all of the trouble of breaking into a museum to get it."

"It's not just any old artefact, Wyatt. It's an athame," Chris persisted, turning the paper round and jabbing his finger at a grainy, black-and-white picture. He squinted at the picture, creasing his forehead worriedly. "I'm sure I've seen this before. In the Book of Shadows, maybe… I don't know, but I definitely remember it. It's the dragon on the handle that's stuck in my brain. It has like a weird jewel in its mouth or something…" He frowned, turning the paper back round to face him and scanning the text. "It says it was passed to the museum in the estate of some dead guy who didn't have any heirs and was on general display until they figured out where it was from, the history of it and what it was worth…" Chris frowned deeper and folded up the paper, blocking Wyatt's view of the sports page again. "I've seen it before, Wyatt," the brunette repeated. "I know I have."

"You could have seen it anywhere, though," Wyatt said dismissively. "It doesn't have to be magical." He reached across for the decidedly-rumpled newspaper and started reading the back page again. "Don't stress yourself over something that the Police can manage perfectly well with. You know we don't do plain old mortal robberies."

Chris sighed, unconvinced. "I guess…" He paused, looking at the paper. "Hey, wait a minute, where'd you get that from? When did you have time to buy a paper?"

"I figured that, as the newest employee at _The Rochester Journal, _I ought to do a little research into the local news," Wyatt said casually, sipping his coffee.

"Oh, yeah. And what's this job that they've offered you, mighty brother of mine?" Chris asked amusedly, his eyes glittering mischievously over his coffee cup. Wyatt cleared his throat and muttered something, attempting to hide behind the paper. "Didn't quite catch that, Wy," Chris teased. "Did you say that they offered you a crappy internship where you'd be making coffee for a living?"

"Hey, it's a real paper," Wyatt protested, folding up the newspaper and slapping it down next to him. "With real reporters, real photographers, real everything. And okay, yeah, they didn't offer me editor of the thing, but I'm just out of college. An internship is a great step for me. Also, it's keeping a roof over your head. I don't see your fancy scholarship doing much to pay the rent. Plus, you know, you wouldn't quit whining about how you wanted to try college on the East Coast, but Mom wouldn't let you. Not until they accepted my application to work for _The_ _Rochester Journal_, anyway, and we could come out here together."

"Dude, chill," Chris said, laughing. "I was only kidding. I love and respect your job. Especially its measly pay cheque."

"Damn straight you do," Wyatt retorted, although he was smiling again. The blond wrapped his fingers around the mug and leant forward, resting his elbows on his knees and surveying the apartment as if for the first time. "Wow…" he said eventually. "This is ours. How weird is that?"

"Too weird," Chris agreed, although not wanting to dwell on the subject lest he start to panic over it again. "You never answered my question, though. Where'd you get the paper?"

Wyatt shrugged. "It was lying in front of the door as I came in just now. Maybe the last people didn't cancel their subscription?"

"When you came in with the last box?" Chris questioned further, frowning.

"Yeah. I figured we'd probably been stepping over it long enough. Plus, I wanted to see how the 49ers were doing."

"Wy, the paper wasn't here when we got here," Chris said seriously. "Believe me, I would have noticed. I dropped the keys and had to bend down to pick them up. No paper."

Wyatt pulled a face. "So, what? You're telling me that it just appeared on the doorstep? Did little green men beam it down?" He laughed but quickly stopped when he saw Chris's face. "Crap. Sometimes, I forget that that's totally possible with our lives."

Chris nodded. "I think it did. Appear, that is, not arrive on a spaceship because demons I can stretch to, aliens I find tricky. Anyway, a newspaper with a front page about a possibly magical stolen artefact just appearing out of thin air? Odd, don't you think?"

Wyatt paused, and then groaned. "Oh, man. We can_not _tell Mom about this. She'd freak out if she knew that trouble was seeking us out already." He got up to refill his mug.

"Waaaaaay ahead of her," Chris mumbled under his breath, chewing on his bottom lip again and staring at the couch cushion that his brother had previously occupied, watching it inflate back to its former shape.

_**Out On Our Own Now**_

On the first floor of Chris and Wyatt's newfound apartment building was a coffee shop that boasted wireless Internet access in green neon in its front window. Chris was itching to get to the bottom of this athame thing, and quickly. He wanted to actually have time to put together his bed before it was time to get into it. Plus, the whole thing was making him really nervous. They'd been here a matter of hours and already there was some kind of crisis. His mother was right: the name Halliwell drew trouble to it like a magnet.

He picked an empty booth and slid into it, placing his laptop on the table and opening it up. He watched it boot and ordered another coffee in the meantime. He had a niggling suspicion that there was not going to be time to put his bed together and therefore no time to sleep in it tonight, and that he would therefore need all of the coffee he could get.

Wyatt had left for work, faithfully promising to take on his share of the research when he got back. They office had asked him to drop in whenever he was able to today so that they could get a load of stuff sorted out. Chris expected that it was some kind of paperwork and was suddenly glad that he'd been stuck with the crisis rather than paperwork.

The witch-whitelighter brought up his browser. His homepage was a search engine and his fingers hovered uncertainly above the keyboard. He suddenly realised that he had no idea where to go with his search and dropped his hands to the tabletop, drumming his fingers absently against it as he thought. His coffee came and he sipped it gratefully. Good. This was gonna take a while.

_**Out On Our Own Now**_

A gloved hand lovingly placed the athame from the front page in a box lined with purple velvet, gently caressing the blade which was glimmering in the light from the flaming torch on the bracket on the wall. The gem in the dragon's mouth seemed dark and turbulent. Eventually, the lid of polished rosewood was closed over the athame as if entombing it.

"It has begun, sisters," a voice announced from behind the mask, slowly pulling the black cloth from its face and pushing back the hood. Long, wavy, ash-blonde hair spilled out as the hood was lowered fully. The porcelain-like features of a very attractive woman with bright blue eyes were picked out in the various flaming light sources around the room as she teased her hair over her shoulders, running absent, manicured fingers through it.

The two other figures unmasked, one revealing a slightly darker complexion than the first, with green eyes and light brown hair, the other revealing an entirely more exotic face, with a head wreathed in silky, black hair and smoky, penetrating brown eyes. Their perfect features glowed innocently and virtuously in the firelight.

"Soon, we'll be rid of these disgusting human forms and free to be what we once were," the blonde promised. "Feared. Revered. Powerful. Now the last descendant of the keepers of our athame is dead we are able to once again reclaim it as our own. Using its power, we will drag ourselves up from this drudgery and ascend, breaking the curse and reverting back to our true selves. I can taste it, sisters. I can _feel _the power."

"What about the Twice-Blessed witch?" the woman with raven hair questioned. "We've got to overcome his power before this ever has hope of coming to pass."

"You know the order," the blonde snapped. "You know the order, and you know that, unless carried out correctly, the ritual won't work and we'll be _stuck _like this forever. No. The Twice-Blessed witch comes last. Until then, sisters, there's a little more fun to be had, don't you think?" Her pretty features were disfigured by a smirk, and her blue eyes washed over yellow, toxic pollution in what had been a clear stream.

_**Out On Our Own Now**_

"No! No, no, no! I am _not_ interested in buying a freaking athame from the 'Mother Goddess'!" Chris yelled at his computer, throwing his hands into the air in frustration. Outside, the late afternoon light had turned to dusk, and the coffee shop was starting to fill up with those just getting off work. Chris's patience was completely shredded. He had no solid data to go on, other than the fact that the athame had a dragon on its handle. He didn't even know the name of the thing. He rubbed a hand across his face and sighed. "I don't care if I can get one for eight ninety-nine, I don't want it!"

"Uh… having trouble?" a voice asked.

Chris looked up. A guy of probably around about his own age, if not just about Wyatt's age, was looking at him inquisitively, a cup of coffee balanced dangerously on the same plate as a biscotto. He had light stubble across his cheeks, growing in the same colour as his brown hair, which was a little long and unruly.

"Oh, uh… Kinda," Chris admitted vaguely, putting a hand protectively on the back of his laptop, not entirely sure that this perfect stranger ought to see him delving deep into various occult websites for references to ancient weapons. "Just some stupid research I'm doing from this morning's paper," Chris explained, mostly-truthfully. "Nothing big."

"Sounds like fun," the guy said, pausing. "Uh… Do you mind if I sit with you? Seeing as it looks as if it's standing room only and the only other space would be in that booth of scary man-hating lesbians over there and that may be awkward."

Chris gave a small snort of laughter and shifted both of his empty coffee cups out of the way. "Take a seat," he invited the guy. "I promise I won't burn my bra and start man-bashing in your general direction. Not until the nine o' clock show, anyway."

"Good to hear." The guy sat down, putting his coffee and biscotto down on the table. "Oh, no, I mean not the fact that you start at nine, the fact that… I forget what I mean. Hey. Oh yeah. I'm Parker, by the way. It might be good to give myself a name. That's probably the desperate thought that crossed my parents' minds before they decided on 'Parker'," he ended dryly, rolling his eyes.

Chris smiled, extending a hand. "I'm Chris."

Parker shook the outstretched hand and took a bite out of biscotto as soon as Chris had retracted it. "Sorry," he apologised, swallowing and looking sheepish. "I'm starving. So hey, Chris. Uh… are you from… around here?"

Chris snorted, smiling and shaking his head. "Not quite," he replied. "I'm about as far from being around here than you'll get. I was a resident of San Francisco, California until this morning, actually, when I got on a plane and now… well. Ta-dah."

Parker's eyebrows shot up slightly, and then he dipped his head to take another chunk of biscuit into his mouth. "That's… quite a move. It's gotta be said. Why here? Why New York?"

"Part whim, I guess, part…" He stopped, aware that he was leaning on the magically-appearing newspaper and that it was transferring newsprint onto his bare elbow. "Fate," he eventually ended gloomily, lifting his elbow and licking two fingers, rubbing at the dark splodge on his skin. "Why is it that they can put people up for a fortnight of six-star luxury orbiting the Earth but they can't make newspaper print that doesn't make you look unwashed?" the brunette groused, shoving the paper away so that he could rest his elbow on table rather than paper.

"Oh, you're reading about the murders?" Parker asked, sliding Chris's paper towards him. "Kinda scary, you know?" He read the headline. "Oh, okay, this is this morning's edition. The news didn't break until after it had gone to print."

Chris groaned internally, hoping against hope, in an incredibly strange way, that there was a mortal killer on the loose and therefore nothing investigation-worthy about the deaths. "Murders?" he prompted, trying to sound interested without sounding excessively macabre.

"Yeah. This guy and his girlfriend were found dead by their building's Super this morning. The Police think it was some kind of robbery gone wrong, because they don't think anything's been taken. Still, though…" He shuddered. "It was close, you know? Coulda been me. Or you. Well, had you not been safely on the West Coast at the time and all… What's this thing about a knife, then?" he inquired, slapping the newspaper with the back of his hand. "Anything I can help with?"

Chris paused, licking his lips thoughtfully although still resting one hand protectively on the back of his laptop screen. He studied Parker as the brunette finished his biscotto by dunking it in his coffee but accidentally lost it into the scalding brown depths. If he really could help — and hell, he needed all of the help he could get — then it wasn't as if he, Chris, would have to fill Parker in on the fact that he was looking up an athame because he thought that it might be a magical tool for evil.

Parker winced. "Sorry," he apologised, snagging his coffee through the handle of the mug. "Sorry. I'm an only child with really busy parents. I'm too used to talking to anyone that will listen. Didn't mean to bug you."

He started to slide out of the booth but Chris lunged forward and grabbed his wrist. "No, no, no. Noooo. Sorry. I was just thinking. Long day. Jetlag. Can you… I mean, I can _use _a computer, sure, but I know that I could be better. Do you think you could dig up more info than I've managed?"

Parker smiled a lopsided smile. "Busy parents, no one to talk to, mostly a high school social reject. All equates to better-than-average computer skills… What do you want to know?"

Chris blew air out through his lips. "Anything," he admitted helplessly, running a hand backwards through his hair. "What it is, what it's used for, where it came from… I tried looking on the museum's website but they hadn't put it on there yet. It was too new. And there wasn't really much else to search for after that."

Parker twisted his mouth in momentary thought. "Well…" he said eventually, drawing out the vowel. "Uh…" He looked around the café and then back at Chris. "I'm thinking that if it was on display in the museum, the museum had to catalogue it before they put it out, right? And it was probably insured, so it had to have _some _kind of rough value, right?"

"I guess…" Chris said slowly. "But it's not up on the website yet and I don't think it will be now it's been stolen, so—"

Parker shook his head. "It doesn't have to be on a website. As long as it's on a database that's somehow connected to a modem…" He dragged Chris's laptop towards him and began closing down the seemingly hundreds of tabs Chris had obtained in his fruitless research. "Okay… Gimme a minute."

Chris suddenly feared for the keys on his keyboard as Parker began to pound at them with well-practised strokes, looking at the screen and not at the keyboard. He squinted slightly and stopped typing, reading the screen to himself and then beginning to type again at a million miles an hour, hitting enter triumphantly after another few minutes.

"Okay, here," Parker told Chris, jabbing at the screen and turning the laptop back towards the brunette. "You say it's a new addition, right? So I'll look at everything that's come in and been appraised in, what? The last fortnight?" He tapped a few more keys. "Oh, okay. Look. It's the only one. That makes that easier…"

Chris's head was whirling and it was all he could do to blink at the large, 3D representation of the athame onscreen, obviously scanned and uploaded to the museum's database. He clicked on the picture and dragged the pointer around, making the athame spun so that he could check it out from all angles. "You're… you're a hacker?" he eventually asked, coming down from his shock and scrolling down and reading the information on the dagger.

Parker smiled shiftily. "Uh… for want of a better term… yes? It was kind of a hobby. Sort of. I don't know. I just kinda taught myself how to do it." He winced again, then his eyes widened guiltily. "Does that bother you? 'cause I can close that and back away and pretend that it never happened." He reached for Chris's laptop again.

"Whoa, wait, no. Sorry. I've just been sitting here for…" Chris checked the clock in the bottom right corner of the screen. "Oh, God. Nearly three hours now. I've turned up nothing and then suddenly…" His eyes alighted on a particular chunk of text and his own eyes widened. "I'm sorry, I've gotta run." He hit 'print' and swept the coffee shop desperately for a printer. He caught sight of a bank of them near the computers lined up along the back wall and closed his laptop, picking it up before it had powered down. "Thanks for your help." He slid out of the booth, rummaging in his pockets for some money and slapped down a bill without really looking at it, hoping that that would cover the coffee, the tip and however much they charged for printouts. He crossed quickly to the printer, snatched the bundle of paper and shoved them under his arm with his laptop, hurrying out of the shop.

Parker looked after him, open mouthed then sighed down into his coffee mug, which he drained. "Yeah, you definitely talk too much…" he muttered, discovering the sodden mess that had been his biscuit congealing at the bottom of his cup. He pulled a face. "Ew…"

_**Out On Our Own Now**_

Despite the fact that it was summer, Chris became fairly chilly once he left the coffee shop. He should have worn more than a t-shirt he chided himself, hurrying quickly around to the side of the building as goosebumps puckered his exposed flesh. He slipped into the alley used by all the residents of the upper floors, where the streetlight was out and he was forced to negotiate his way mostly by feel through a minefield of empty crates and full trash cans.

The distant sound of a siren wailing drifted towards him on the urban air already saturated with noise and a cool breeze wafted down the alley, disturbing sheets of abandoned newspaper and sending them crinkling and fluttering towards him. One got snagged around his foot and he lifted it, shaking the paper off so that it could continue its journey.

He _had_ seen the athame before, and now he knew why it was setting off alarm bells. It was, to put it bluntly, not a good evil toy. In any way, shape or form. He got to the doorway to the building, which was thankfully lit, and suddenly realised that he had no way of getting in. He stared blankly at the numerical keypad that was supposed to let him in, providing he knew the code. He didn't.

He kicked at the door, frustrated, and then smashed the numerical keypad with the heel of his hand. It bleeped blankly at him, informing him that he had the incorrect code and should try again. Tightening his jaw in annoyance he leant on the buzzer for his apartment, hoping that Wyatt was home. He paused and then leant on it again for longer this time, and then stood there tapping it in short bursts. No answer. Wyatt must still be out.

He bit his bottom lip and took a furtive glance over his shoulder at the empty alley and disappeared from the doorway in a cloud of orbs, unaware as he drifted upwards that the blue lights were glinting on three pairs of poisonous yellow irises lurking in the shadows.


	3. Chapter 2

Wyatt slowly climbed the stairs of the apartment building, not really concentrating on where he was going. He had reached the floor above his and Chris's new apartment before he realised it and sighed heavily, turning on his heel and starting back down the staircase. They'd talked numbers at work. Actual, pay cheque numbers. For some reason, it wasn't until that moment that it had occurred to him that he was going to be earning his own money now, and that he'd have to use it to pay the rent, the bills, to buy groceries… It was all his. When his first pay cheque arrived, he was going to be truly independent. It sort of made him dizzy.

He reached his floor and shuffled over to the door to the apartment, his brain abuzz with that particular piece of information. He dug his hands through his pockets for keys before remembering that Chris had the keys. They really needed a new set cut. He tapped gently on the beige door with one knuckle, leaning tiredly on the doorjamb. The door was wrenched open so fast that he could feel a draught being sucked from the hallway into the apartment and he blinked, shocked, jerking upright.

"There you are," Chris said exasperatedly, dragging his brother into the apartment. He closed the door behind them and let go of Wyatt, turning to face the blond. "We have a problem," the younger Halliwell announced tersely.

Wyatt blinked again, his mouth working but no sound coming out, still surprised at being jerked out of his reverie so rudely by his brother. "Okay," he eventually said slowly. "What kind of problem?" He took in the apartment for the first time. There were a lot fewer boxers than they had brought with them when they moved in, and flattened cardboard boxes leant against the wall by the door. The couch was clutter free, facing the wall that the bedroom doors were on, as was an armchair which faced the windows at the back of the apartment. A coffee table Wyatt wasn't even aware that they'd poached from the Manor's attic was also visible, although it was now covered entirely by A4 computer printouts rather than their worldly belongings encased in cardboard. "Did you… did you clean up in here?" he asked, still glancing around the apartment in slight amazement at the transformation as he was dragged over to the couch.

Chris looked momentarily guilty and sat down in the armchair. "Yeah. Kind of. We had to do it eventually and it was better than sitting around chewing all of my nails off waiting for you to get home, and definitely less painful."

Wyatt sighed, throwing himself down onto the couch. "Oh, goodie," he said sarcastically, running a hand across his face. "You're nail-biting, huh? That's a ten on the Things-Are-Looking-Bad-O-Meter."

Chris ignored the jibe and began stacking the papers into a rough pile, tapping them on the coffee table. "I knew the athame was bad news," he said, shaking the papers at Wyatt.

Wyatt took the sheaf from Chris and groaned at the size of the stack. The blond idly flipped through the pages listlessly, not taking in any of them. "Chris, I've just dealt with, amongst other things, a hundred forms all about that thick. Can we do the Cliff Notes version? Please?"

Chris sighed and rolled his eyes, but relented. "Fine. You want the summary? The athame that was stolen? It's bad. See, I told you it was something."

"Gloating isn't a good look for you," Wyatt informed Chris dryly. "Just tell me and quit with the dramatics."

"The athame is called The Knife of Armiel. It belonged to this ancient cult of vicious female warrior beings who sought vengeance on… well, pretty much everyone. They weren't very ladylike, let's just say that. They especially hated men, and would pounce and maim them, tearing off their…" Chris cleared his throat, feeling the tingling of a flush of embarrassment burning behind his ears. "Yeah."

Wyatt winced and also shifted uncomfortably. "Wow. What a crazy bunch of bitches. Let me guess, they weren't getting any?"

"Apparently not," Chris muttered, taking some printouts from the top of the pile and putting them face down next to it. "A long time ago, the people they were terrorising and pillaging had had enough, and there was a fight. Most of the population, except the three leaders, were wiped out, and it took a whole all-male coven to curse the leaders, turning them human and rendering them powerless. That's all I know for now. The museum didn't go much into the detail behind it, to be honest, and they treat it like a gruesome bedtime story rather than what it actually is."

Wyatt took a minute to process, leaning back on the couch and exhaling heavily, running a hand through his hair. "Oh, this is going to suck. In case you haven't noticed, we're kind of lacking in a whole coven of witches. And, even if Mom did manage to squeeze one into one of these boxes, 'Just in case', then the coven couldn't kill them. Only curse them. How do we do it?"

"Well, at the risk of inflating your ego, I do have to remind you that you do pack quite a punch with your all-mighty Twice Blessedness," Chris said grudgingly.

Wyatt shrugged. "Fine then. We try scrying for them and then, when we find them, I blast them. Or we write a spell, or you make a potion and kaboom. No more demonic threat. Or, hell, even an axe to the neck might do it. I'd like to see them try to live without a head." He grinned, suddenly enthused. "This is a plan, this might work," he continued, nodding vigorously.

"We'll need more than a 'might' work, Wy," Chris reminded his brother grimly. That seemed to be his main purpose in life, he thought, to ground Wyatt and drag him back from running off half-cocked to get fried or skewered or die some other nasty, demon-related death. "We're gonna need a definite if we're going to go up against them. They seem pretty powerful. I'll see what else I can find out about them."

"Fine. But, just for the record, I would like to state that my way would be quicker." Wyatt paused, staring down at his hands. Suddenly, he looked up, his blue eyes alight with a Eureka moment. "What about the dead guy that donated the thing to the museum in the first place? Do you think we could find anything out there?"

Chris blinked, not having considered that angle. He frowned thoughtfully and began leafing purposefully through the pages. "Yeah, here… Oh. Got your passport? It's across the lake in Toronto."

"Well, I know a way we can get an excellent Air Miles deal on orbing," Wyatt said with a grin. "So Canada, huh? That could be fun."

"Fun for me," Chris said slyly, stacking the printouts again. "Mr Big Shot Wannabe Journalist has to work tomorrow, remember?"

Wyatt's smile slid off his face like a brick falling from the sky as that realisation hit him. "Crap," he grumbled. "This job thing? It's overrated, let me tell you that."

"I'll bring you back a maple leaf," Chris promised teasingly. "And maybe a Canadian flag, if you're lucky."

Wyatt shook his head. "No."

"Well, I'm not getting you anything that costs over five bucks, dude," Chris told Wyatt. "So pick something, pick it quick and make it cheap."

"I don't mean no to souvenirs because, you know, that's _always _a yes. I mean no to you border-hopping all by yourself. I get a lunch hour. We'll go then."

Anger flashed in Chris's eyes. "What?!" he demanded, getting up off the chair. "No way. I don't need a babysitter, Wyatt. I'm twenty-one years old."

"I don't care if you're a hundred. You're not going by yourself. Mom would kill me if she knew that I let you skip _the country _for a day in order to demon hunt by yourself. We'll do this on my lunch break, got it?"

Chris's jaw tightened. "It's good to know you have faith in me," he said, his words dripping with sarcasm. He sneered. "After all of these years, you still don't think I can do anything right, do you? I'm not some kid anymore. I've grown up."

"You're still my kid brother," Wyatt pointed out, raising his voice and getting to his feet as well. "And we're here to protect each other. Watch each other's backs. How do I watch your back if you're in Canada and I'm stuck at work, huh, Chris? And another thing. There's this crazy cult of warrior bitches that want their athame back, yeah? And the guy that has the athame just dies does he? That seems pretty convenient to me, Chris. It might not be safe for just one of us to go, especially if they're still hanging around and I swear to God, if you got hurt, or worse…" Wyatt paused, shaking his head and swallowing. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter. "I don't know what I'd do," he admitted purposefully. "Okay? So we'll do this together."

Although touched by his brother's sentiment, the implementation of rules and boundaries on him didn't sit well with Chris and he chewed on the inside of his cheek to stop himself retorting. "Fine," he agreed shortly, not finding anyway out of the situation at the moment. "Let's just hope there's enough time," he added pointedly, sitting back down and folding his arms.

"There will be," Wyatt reassured him. "And don't think I don't know what you're thinking. If I even sense you anywhere _near _Canada, I'll find you and drag you back by the hair. Also, if you block me, I'll hunt you down and still drag you back by your hair. I don't want you dying on me."

"I think I can control myself," Chris said. "Don't worry. I'll wait for you like a good little witch. I'm going to see what there is in the way of summer work around here tomorrow, anyway. You may grossly invade my privacy and sense me wandering all over town if you so wish."

Wyatt tilted his head back and sighed, exasperated. "Chris…" he began, trying to stem the flow of his little brother's sulk before it truly burst. "I trust you," he finally settled on, snapping his head forward to stare his brother right in the eyes. "More than anyone in the world, I trust _you_. You're the one I want watching my back when we have to fight. You're my brother, and the last thing I want is a dead brother, but I won't _Nineteen Eighty-Four _you around town, don't worry about it. I know you'll keep your word."

"Oh yeah? How do you know that?" Chris asked.

"'cause you know that I could kick your ass," Wyatt said with a grin, trying to lighten Chris's rapidly darkening feelings towards him and melt the icy, petulant look his brother was shooting at him. "And you don't want to embarrass yourself with that, do you?"

Chris rolled his eyes, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards. "Actually, _jackass_, I was wondering how you knew about _Nineteen Eighty-Four. _I didn't think that it had been published in a popup."

Wyatt's jaw dropped and then he grinned, shaking his head, relieved that they had averted that particular spat. They had fought a lot when they were younger, sure. Find an example of siblings who hadn't. However, when they had fought as kids, he had never cared about what he had said to Chris and how it had hurt his brother. All he had cared about was the things that Chris had said to him and how unjust they were. He smiled. Kids were so biased. Now he hated fighting with Chris, hated having bad blood between them, if only because of the fact that it seriously hampered their efforts to work as a team should the need arise. He reached behind him and grabbed a throw pillow to toss at his brother's head.

Chris flicked a wrist and sent the pillow thudding into his bedroom door. "Ooh, Strike One. You missed. Loser."

Wyatt smiled. "You know that I hate you, right?"

Chris snorted and flashed a grin of his own. "Yeah. Ditto, by the way. Hate you too, bro."

_**Out On Our Own Now**_

The apartment felt cold and a little damp as he entered and Jake Ward frowned, peering into the darkness. There was suddenly a loud hissing noise accompanied by a high-pitched yowling, and a streak of hissing orange tabby fur shot past his legs and out into the hall, narrowly missing careering into the door opposite his. With a grace only cats seemed to possess, he missed ploughing headlong into Number Twenty-Four's door and sped off down the corridor, still hissing, with his ears flattened against his skull and orange raccoon-like striped tail streaming out behind him.

He swallowed, his heart thudding wildly, before he began to control himself. "Oh, man… No, no, no. CC!" Jake started half-heartedly down the corridor after his cat, but CC had rounded the corner and somehow managed to disappear from sight. He groaned. CC was a lazy house cat that hardly ever went outside. He'd escaped before, but had come back in the dead of night, scratching the door to shreds and meowing pitifully, apparently having found that the city nightlife not at all to his taste. He'd be back when he was hungry, because God forbid he had to hunt for his own food. Rolling his eyes, Jake walked back to his apartment and the ajar door, pushing it open.

A cool tendril of chilly air meandered its way through the apartment at him and he saw that the French windows leading out to the balcony were both open, banging lightly against the wall on either side of the doorway in the breeze. The balcony overlooked the Genesee River, and the chill of the night air was amplified by the volume of water rushing past outside. That would be why it was so cold in here… He crossed the room, expertly skirting furniture in the dim light to the double doors and swung them both closed against the night, turning the lock and shooting the bolts at the top and bottom of each door. He couldn't remember leaving them open, but then again he couldn't remember much lately. Probably something to do with not getting home from work until ten at night, he thought to himself bitterly, taking one last look out of the windows at the dark, turbulent river before snatching at the drapes and drawing them across the window.

The apartment was now completely dark and he crossed back to the door, flicking a light switch. Lights flickered on underneath the wall-mounted kitchen cabinets, throwing harsh light onto the work surfaces but into very little of the rest of the apartment, save for a blue glow as the light bounced off the stainless steel sink and cooker top.

He picked up the kettle from a gas ring and emptied its contents down the sink, filling it with fresh water before putting it back on the hob. He turned the gas up full and, with a point of his finger, shot a small electrical spark below the kettle, igniting the gas with a small 'whumph'.

He ambled absently over to the TV and used the button on the set to turn it on, turning to the couch and digging underneath the couch cushions for the remote. "I'm the only one that lives here and I _still _can't find the remote," he muttered to no one. "How do I manage to lose it every freaking time?"

"…and made off with a reported twenty-five thousand dollars worth of diamonds and other jewellery," the newsreader informed him, wrapping up a story. "And this just in. We have it from an anonymous source that Police are potentially linking a ceremonial knife stolen from a museum yesterday to a murder committed in the early hours of this morning. The Police have neither confirmed nor denied this information. This is all we have on this story at this time, and we will, of course, be keeping you informed as we get more on it. Now, Jim, how about this hot front that's been coming up from the south, huh? What's the latest on that?"

"Success!" Jake cried jubilantly, finding the remote and holding it aloft. "Yeah, I don't care about this mighty fine dry spell we've been having. Zip it." He collapsed backwards onto the couch and pointed the remote at the TV, but nothing happened. The TV began to fade in front of him and he suddenly realised that there was a black haze blocking the screen. Frowning, he swiped at the air in front of him and then gave a startled yelp when something grabbed his wrist in midair and squeezed. "What the—?"

"Ah, ah, ah," a female voice chided gently and teasingly as a dark form appeared in front of him. Black robes were draped over the figure, and a mask covered all but reptilian eyes that were glowing an ill-looking yellow. "You wouldn't want to use any bad language in front of a lady, now, would you?"

Jake suddenly felt a huge tug on his arm that wrenched him off the couch and sent him airborne, hurtling backwards towards the closed French windows. He cursed inwardly, screwing up his face and bracing himself for the impact as his back hit the windows. The wood and glass all gave way behind him with a splintering crunch, and he exploded out onto the balcony with the debris, slamming into the stone balustrade and falling face first to the flags.

Even though his ears were ringing, he could still hear falling glass tinkling vaguely in the distance. He groaned and rolled onto his back, waiting for the waves of pain to stop washing over him. Well, this was the reason CC had made his exit, he thought grimly, pulling himself to his feet. There were demons in the apartment. It said something when a cat was smarter than its owner.

He stabbed his hand out into the air and unleashed a bolt of electricity into his apartment through the shattered doorway. Inside, something exploded but he didn't for one second think it was a demon. It had probably been something useful. Cautiously, he slunk back into the apartment, rounding the doorjamb and hesitating, wishing that he'd turned on more lights. A hand grabbed him round the throat and he choked, trying to prise the gloved fingers from his jugular. Blindly, he shot a bolt of electricity at the intruder, sending her crashing sideways to the carpet, her dark costume smoking slightly.

He took a moment to breathe, which was when he realised that there was more than one demon and that he was in trouble. A second masked figure took hold of him and tossed him into the corner. He hit the TV, which fell over backwards, throwing up sparks and a coil of smoke and landed on the glass TV stand. He fell through both layers of glass to the carpet, stunned. Blindly, he tossed two bolts of electricity into the room. He saw a figure duck to avoid one bolt, which blasted a picture off the wall and left a black scorch mark behind. The other stream crackled out of the door and blasted a potted plant in the corner of the balcony.

Suddenly, there were two figures behind him standing on his wrists, pinning his hands to the floor and a third standing above him with an athame clutched in both hands. He had no time to contemplate that this was the end for him before the blade plunged down, through his ribcage and into his heart. The hilt jumped wildly with the frantic beat before it was wrenched out.

The kettle began to boil, spewing steam from its spout and making it whistle. To Jake, the steam seemed to be filling the whole apartment as a white fog began to cloud his vision, obscuring his three attackers until they melted into the darkness and consuming him, swaddling him with probing fingers of ice.

_**Out On Our Own Now**_

Chris wandered through downtown Rochester aimlessly, hoping that a 'Help Wanted' sign would jump out and batter him around the head or, even better, grow arms and drag him into the establishment and hire him on the spot. For the purposes of, well, eating the witch-whitelighter could really use the cash a summer job would bring in.

Sirens had been filling the air for a while now; a grating medley of wailing had become the backdrop for his morning walk no matter which street he seemed to turn into. A Police cruiser shot past him on his left and skidded through a red-lighted intersection, disappearing around a corner. His curiosity getting the better of him, Chris took off at a gentle run after the diminishing sound of the siren, jogging for about half a block before he found his path blocked by yellow Police tape. Stopping suddenly he stepped back and saw that the sidewalk opposite the building was choked with people. He quickly crossed the street, hoping that whatever was going on inside the building would distract the milling officers from his blatant jaywalking and stood with the crowd.

A plump, Hispanic woman in a floral apron with bright, unnaturally red hair peeking out from under a headscarf almost immediately sidled up to him, clicking her tongue and shaking her head. "I don't know what this city is coming to," she said. "I raised my kids around here and nothing like this ever happened in this neighbourhood when they were small, I'll tell you that."

"What happened?" Chris asked, not taking his eyes off the opposite building. Officers were standing outside, arms folded defiantly, except one who was speaking into his radio.

"Murder," the woman replied shortly. "The man that lived in Number Twenty-Three was killed last night. The word is that it was one of those cult killings that you read about all the time and see on TV. Apparently, the apartment was crammed _full _of all of that devil hocus pocus. You know, candles, herbs, penty-thingies. They think it might be some kind of _sacrifice._ He seemed like such a nice man. You never would have thought that he was a Satanist, would you?"

Chris suddenly realised that she expected an answer to her question and blinked, put on the spot with his brain far behind him and barely listening to what she was saying. "Uh… No. No, ma'am. It's… uh, always the ones you least suspect?" he tried, wincing inwardly and looking down on her.

She seemed to deem this answer satisfactorily as she nodded, accompanying it with more tongue-clucking. "Thirty years I've lived in this neighbourhood. Thirty years..." she lamented. She offered a work-hardened, freckle-backed hand for him to shake. "I'm Mrs Marquez. You're a new face. Who are you, kid?"

"Chris!"

The witch-whitelighter turned at his name and saw Parker elbowing his way through the crowd, muttering various 'excuse mes' and flashing them a tight, irritated smile when they finally got out of the way for him.

"Parker. Hey. What are you doing here?" the witch-whitelighter asked.

Parker pulled a face. "Uh… To be honest? Mostly morbid curiosity," he replied sheepishly. "I was just on my way out and found… this. Whatever 'this' is."

"'This' is a murder, kid," Mrs Marquez informed him. "I don't know what this city is coming to, I really don't. Murders left right and centre, right on my doorstep and everything."

There was suddenly a flurry of activity at the front of the building, and a gurney with a bodybag on it was wheeled out of the lobby. The officers tried to close ranks around it as it was loaded in the back of a waiting ambulance, but flashbulbs penetrated the guard and several reporters stepped in front of their cameramen, mics in hands, ready to do their piece for their station.

"I guess they really believe that the world is just hanging on desperately to see a rubber-clad murder victim," Parker commented, pulling a disturbed face as the floor of the ambulance folded the wheels of the gurney, allowing them to slide it inside. "I mean, I wasn't."

"I've seen worse," both Chris and Mrs Marquez said grimly as the doors to the ambulance slammed closed and the engine started. The witch-whitelighter and the middle-aged woman regarded each other curiously as the ambulance moved off down the street, which was free of traffic thanks to the cops.

Eventually Mrs Marquez snorted, although not unkindly. "You're still a baby, kid," she said, patting his arm. "There's worse out there. Believe me." She turned her back to them and began working her way through the dispersing crowd, stopping and turning. "You can call me Rosa," she said thoughtfully. "You seem like good kids. There aren't many of those around nowadays." She turned around again and walked away.

Both Chris and Parker stared after her, slightly bemused and not entirely sure what had just happened. Eventually, Chris twisted his mouth in thought and stared at the bright yellow Police tape that seemed to be criss-crossing everything, like the web of a giant, radioactive spider and sighed. A sacrifice, Rosa had said, and an apartment full of occult stuff, which were probably Wiccan supplies, which meant that the victim was most probably a witch. A male witch. It seemed logical that male witches would be part of the demons' MO, given that a cult of them had cursed them into humanity. They might be a little tetchy now they had their athame back.

He chewed on his bottom lip in thought and ran a frustrated hand through his hair, spinning around on the pavement and nearly walking into Parker, who was staring at the sidewalk and looking awkward. He needed to know more, and who knew more about this right now than the Police and the databases they'd surely be entering all of this into even as he stood here and thought?

Parker looked up and his eyes met Chris's, and the young man looked suddenly alarmed, a deer caught in the headlights, when he caught Chris's expression. "What?" he asked, panicked, as Chris continued to stare at him. "What's with the look? I do not like this look, for future reference." Chris still didn't say anything, partially submersed in his own thoughts. "Ooooookay, now this is starting to get weird," Parker commented worriedly, taking a step backwards from the witch-whitelighter and almost immediately tripping over a fire hydrant.

_**Out on Our Own Now**_

"How do you know if your wrist is broken?" Parker wondered, gently rotating his left wrist. He had landed on it after tripping over the fire hydrant, and his palm was starting to bruise. Blood continued to drip from a gash the sidewalk had put into his hand as they walked.

"Been there, done that," Chris said dryly, referring to the time that he had broken both of his wrists being tossed through the wooden balustrade on the stairs in the Manor to the entryway below. "And it hurts like hell."

"Hey, this is internal bleeding," Parker insisted, holding out his rapidly-darkening bruise. "Bruises count as internal bleeding. Oh, this is me."

Chris frowned, finding himself staring at the green neon sign in front of the coffee shop he had been in last night researching the most recent magical mess. "What? This is where you live?"

"Well, no, I do live above it. There may be serious privacy issues should I live in a coffee shop. Although the rent might work out cheaper…" Parker began walking again around the side of the building.

"This is _my _building," Chris told Parker, jogging to catch up with him. "This is where I live. I share Number Eleven with my brother."

The door buzzed as Parker finished punching in his code. He turned to look at Chris. "Seriously? Huh. I'm Number Fourteen." They entered the small entry hall that doubled as a stairwell and started on the staircase. When they reached Parker's apartment he unlocked the door, tossing his keys into a thick, ceramic fruit bowl on an end table inside the door and gesturing for Chris to go in.

The message light on the phone mounted on the kitchen wall was blinking, and Parker walked over to it and hit 'play'. "Sit down," he offered, turning his back to the phone. "I'll get my laptop out in a second. It's in my room."

A woman approaching her fifties appeared on the phone's screen. She was wearing a crisp linen blouse open two buttons from the neck, and a string of large pearls encircled her throat. Two more glistened in her ears. Her hair was cut into a short, grey bob that ended just under her jawbone. Over the blouse she wore a fitted, pin-striped jacket. The camera captured sunlight spilling in from a large window behind her and glimmering on the wide, highly-polished, wooden desk.

"Parker?" she asked demandingly of the camera. "Parker, are you there? If you're there, pick up. Do you hear me? If you're there, pick up this inst—"

Parker's eyes widened and he spun around and snatched the phone off the cradle, cutting off the woman with a jab at a button with his thumb. He winced, holding the handset close to his chest. "Um… Yeah. Meet Elizabeth Reade, my mother," he admitted sheepishly, scratching the back of his head ashamedly with his bad hand. "Uh, I'm gonna go and clean this up," he informed Chris awkwardly, gesturing with his bloody hand. "And take this," he waved the phone. "Then I will be right with you. I promise." He left the kitchen area and pushed open a door to his right, closing it behind him.

He turned the light on in the bathroom and rifled through the cabinet, looking for alcohol. Finding it, he pressed a square of gauze over the mouth of the bottle and upended it onto the cotton, and then dabbed gingerly at the wound with it, hissing as it stung. He held down the 2 button on the phone and it started speed-dialling. Cradling the device between his shoulder and ear, he continued to clean up his hand. "Mom, hey. It's me," he said as his mother answered.

"Parker? It's about time you called me back. I rang about an hour ago," his mother said.

Parker rolled his eyes and continued cleaning. "I was out. Am I not allowed to go out now? Do I need to stay at home at hide under my bed?"

"Don't get smart with me," Elizabeth snapped. "You know why you need to be careful. Why can't I see you, anyway? What's wrong with your phone?"

"What? Oh. I've taken it off the base. You know that the base is the bit with the camera on. The handset is just a handset," Parker informed her patiently. He hopped up onto the counter next to the sink and folded the lint so that a clean patch showed for him to use.

Elizabeth made a cross between a snort and a suspicious murmur down the phone at her son. Parker didn't say anything, just listened to his mother on the other end of the line, knowing that she'd break the silence first even if it was just to say goodbye. She couldn't stand silence — it was time-wasting to her.

"Did you go out by yourself?" she eventually asked.

Parker winced, suddenly glad that they weren't in a video conversation. "Ooh. Um…"

"Tell me you didn't?" Elizabeth demanded severely. "Tell me that you didn't go out wandering by yourself? If you did, Parker, so help me God—"

"Mom, chill. It was just a little walk, that's all. Nothing bad happened. I've got to get out of here every once in a while or I'll go completely nuts. It feels like a prison cell," Parker ended darkly, reaching out and screwing the lid back on the hydrogen peroxide.

"You should have taken them with you, Parker. That's what they're there for. In fact, that's the _only_ reason they're there. How could they not notice you sneaking out?"

Parker sighed. "Mom, are you listening? Nothing. Happened. I'm fine. Calm down."

"Nothing happened _this_ time," Elizabeth pointed out icily. "What about next time? I'll call again in a couple of days. Try doing as you're told in the meantime, got it?" She hung up.

Parker pulled a sad face at the dial tone buzzing in his ear and put the handset down on the counter next to him, hitting the disconnect button. He stared contemplatively at it, gnawing on his bottom lip before balling the bloodstained lint and tossing it into the toilet bowl and jumping off the counter, snagging the phone on his way out of the bathroom.

_**Out On Our Own Now**_

"Sorry about that," Parker said, closing the bathroom door behind him. He threw the phone onto an armchair.

"Not a problem. You're the one that's doing me the favour. Nice apartment," Chris commented, leaning against the back of the couch and folding his arms.

Parker frowned bemusedly, spreading out his hands. "Thanks, but, uh, it's the same as yours."

Chris shook his head. "No, it's not. It's bigger. I think the even numbers must have a different layout as well. Plus, you know, the balcony. Who do you share it with?"

Parker crossed to the kitchen and peered into an open box of cereal on the breakfast bar. It rustled when he shook it and he fished out a handful of flakes and garish marshmallow pieces and popped them into his mouth. "No one," he said, chewing, and then pulling a face. He squinted at the back of the packet and reached under the counter, dumping the handful of cereal into a silver trashcan, sweeping the box in afterwards. "Just me," he added, dusting off his hands and shrugging, letting the lid of the bin clatter closed.

"Bad cereal?" Chris asked sympathetically, quirking a smile at the other man's actions.

Parker nodded in agreement, swallowing distastefully. "Yeah. Which I find odd, given the science lab of preservatives unpronounceable to man in every nutritious bite. Yum." He walked through an open door next to the bathroom and came out moments later with his laptop. "Here we go." He sat on the couch and rested the computer on his lap, opening it and turning it on.

Chris spun around so that his front was leaning against the couch rather than his back. He rested his forearms on the back of the couch and leaned forwards, reducing his height and gaining a better vantage point to see Parker's screen. "If it's just you, how do you keep up with the rent?" the witch-whitelighter wondered. "Bank robbery? I hear that's good for making cash."

"I'm not a bank robber, I'm at college," Parker said, smiling. "I should be a senior, but there were a couple of… complications. I had to drop out last year, so now I'm retaking my junior year. Pretty sad, huh? And, as for the rent…" He paused, pulling a face. "That wonderful woman you just saw on my answering machine pays it," he admitted in a rush. "Yeah, it's fine. Go ahead. That's a free ticket to mock me. My mother pays my rent, etcetera. It's fine."

"She pays the rent on this place?" Chris asked. He whistled. "Wow. She must love you a lot."

Parker gave a small, grim smile and gazed over at the phone on the armchair, twisting his mouth in thought. "Yeah. Or whatever."

* * *

_Hm. So huh. I honestly intended to try my hardest to update this on a Saturday every week, but I think it's been a little longer than that. Cough. I'm very sorry, but am hoping that you're still sitting comfortably enough on the edge of your seats (is that an oxymoron?) to click that little review button. If I could, I'd surround it in fairy lights and have a big neon arrow hovering above it. As it happens, I can but smile sweetly, so…_


	4. Chapter 3

**Hey guys. I'm sorry. I know it's been such a long time. I think this was ready about five or six days ago, maybe a week, and was down, or my uploading capabilities were down, or something vaguely like that, so I couldn't post it and then didn't have time to upload it. But now I do! Chapter! Voila!**

Chris paced the apartment, checking his watch and chewing on his fingernails. Where was Wyatt? He was supposed to be here by now. Angrily, the witch-whitelighter spun round and ran a frustrated hand through his hair, stalking across the apartment again. Wyatt had promised that he would be here on his lunch hour. Wyatt had promised that they would have enough time to investigate this thing in his lunch hour. It was beginning to look like they wouldn't. He wanted desperately to orb and do his own investigating, but he knew that Wyatt wouldn't like it. Wyatt had promised that he'd be here and Chris had promised that he wouldn't go orbing off to Canada. Although, Wyatt hadn't honoured his side of the agreement… Chris paused, considering that thought, but then suddenly seeing orbing lights appearing in the middle of the apartment.

"It's about time," the brunette snapped harshly, folding his arms as his brother formed fully. "What happened to 'We'll have enough time on my lunch hour'?"

Wyatt pulled a face and said bitterly, "There was a problem with the copier. They thought I could fix it and then it would save them the expense of calling an engineer." He spread his hands, revealing palms smeared with toner. "You know, I swear that fixing office equipment was not part of my contract. You'd think I'd want to be a mechanic and not a journalist, huh?"

"I have bad news," Chris informed his brother, brushing away Wyatt's complaints.

Wyatt's face fell and he groaned, running a hand over his eyes. "What are you recently, the Bad News Fairy? Don't you _ever_ have anything good to tell me?"

"Hm…" Chris narrowed his eyes, contemplating Wyatt and pretending to think. "Well, I guess I could tell you that you don't look anywhere near as much of a pretentious jerk as I thought you would dressed up in your 'My First Day at the Office' clothes. Would that be classed as good news?"

Wyatt looked down at himself, and then back up at Chris. He straightened his jacket defensively. "Just tell me the bad news," he demanded tiredly. "I'll probably like it more after that."

"Our friends have already killed one witch, possibly even two. Meaning that they're moving faster than we thought they would and that we need to vanquish them pretty soon before they try again."

Wyatt didn't say anything, just looked past Chris at the wall behind his brother despairingly as he took it all in. Eventually, he said, "You know, I knew moving into the middle of a big city would mean a lot more hustle and bustle, but this is ridiculous. You're right; we've got to stop them." He paused. "Wow. Why has no one told me how lame that sounds before?"

Chris shrugged. "I guess there were so many other lame aspects about you they just never got round to mentioning that particular one," he deadpanned, nodding sympathetically.

Wyatt narrowed his eyes. "You're such a smart ass. You know what? I'm not gonna let these slide anymore." He stepped towards Chris.

The brunette smirked, his eyes glittering mischievously. "Canada, anyone?" he asked, jumping backwards as Wyatt lunged at him and then orbing out.

Wyatt stuck his tongue in his cheek in annoyance and, plotting all of the revenges he intended to inflict on his brother, hastily followed the brunette before Chris managed to employ his usual talent of getting into trouble.

_**Out On Our Own Now**_

When he reappeared, he was immediately aware of a cold damp seeping into his shoes. Looking down, he realised that he'd reappeared in a deep, mud-filled pothole. He screwed up his face into a pained expression and stepped out of the hole, shaking his feet to try and dislodge some of the water and mud. He looked up and discovered that they were on a long, poorly-maintained dirt road that extended behind him further than it was possible to determine because of a bend in the track. The road ended at the huge, double, wrought-iron gates in front of him, which dwarfed him despite his more-than-six-feet frame. They were set in a grey stone wall that ran in both directions as far as he could see.

"I guess we try the intercom?" Chris suggested uncertainly, shoving his hands into his pockets and looking around at the gloomy atmosphere. He nodded towards the speaker system on one of the gates' pillars. He walked up to it and pressed it with his thumb. Nothing happened. He looked over his shoulder at Wyatt and shrugged, leaning on the buzzer again. "So… I guess no one's home?"

"Who's there?" a sharp, female voice demanded from the speaker, making both of the brothers jump.

Wyatt nodded frantically, gesturing towards the intercom. Chris spread his hands wide and reached out, dragging his brother towards it and stabbing at it with his finger. Wyatt shook his head vigorously, shoving Chris's shoulder so that the brunette stumbled backwards.

"Hello?" the intercom demanded snippily.

Chris shoved Wyatt towards the intercom again, flicking his head frantically at it. Wyatt shook his head, setting his jaw. The blond flicked a wrist, telekinetically twisting Chris's arm up behind his back. Chris grimaced, crying out with silent pain and angrily using his free hand to employ some telekinesis of his own and yank at Wyatt's ear, dragging the blond towards the intercom by his earlobe. Wyatt caved first and released Chris's arm. Chris rubbed at it reproachfully, waiting a few extra, vengeful seconds before dropping his own hold on Wyatt.

"H-Hello?" Wyatt finally stuttered into the intercom. A woman's face suddenly appeared on the screen next to it. Iron grey hair was scraped back from her face and the head and shoulders that were visible on the screen appeared to be dressed in black, trimmed with black velvet.

"The reading of Mr. Hubert's will was last week," she informed them shortly, "and he didn't leave any money to stray vagabonds, rest assured. I suggest you leave before I call security."

Wyatt swallowed his anger and tried his best not to look affronted. He put on as calm a face as he could and said, as politely as he could muster, "We're journalists interested in doing a piece on Mr. Hubert for the _Rochester—_"

"I was Mr. Hubert's housekeeper for thirty-five years. He had no one else. He was a good, decent, kind man and would hate to be hounded at his gates by two teenagers eagerly awaiting their high school graduation. Now, there's a realtor coming soon. I'd appreciate it if you left before he arrives and starts deducting thousands from the property value at the sight of you." The screen went blank and the intercom went silent.

Chris cried out in pain as Wyatt punched his shoulder. Rubbing it angrily, he glared at his brother. "What was that for?" he demanded.

"For making me talk to her," Wyatt replied. "You know you can do the puppy dog thing and get anything you want out of a bitter, withered, 107-year-olds."

"Hey, you _started _it," Chris pointed out petulantly. "You twisted _my _arm first. You're just lucky I only grabbed your earlobe," he finished pointedly, narrowing his eyes at his brother. "It's also not my fault that you have a pain threshold a three-year-old girl would laugh at. Now, we didn't manage the honest route. Let's do some magical breaking and entering before I kill you." He dissolved into a cloud of orbs again, with Wyatt not far behind.

_**Out On Our Own Now**_

"Where are we?" Wyatt asked, peering through the semi-darkness. There were large, floor-to-ceiling windows at either end of the room but they were covered with heavy wooden shutters and only the smallest amount of light could peek through the chinks.

"Drawing room?" Chris tried uncertainly. "Rich people always have a drawing room, right?" He looked around at anonymous white mounds that had been furniture before dust sheets had been thrown on them. Silence hung oppressively around the room, and dust motes danced in the rare beams of light. A huge portrait dominated the area above the mantelpiece and Chris walked over and stared up at a man in a tall top hat and dressed with a Victorian manner.

"I don't think there's anything here that will be of any use…" Wyatt noted, peeking underneath a dustsheet at an ornate, wooden-frame, over-stuffed couch and then letting the sheet hide it again. "What's next door?" He jerked his head over to a polished, wooden-panelled door with a carved, brass doorknob. He crossed the room and peeked out, then started backwards, alarmed, slamming the door behind him. "Orb, orb, orb!" he hissed urgently, and both siblings broke into a million shimmering blue and white lights just as the door was wrenched open and the housekeeper looked inside intently.

_**Out On Our Own Now**_

"Should have gone with Door Number Two," Wyatt muttered to himself, shaking his head and trying to get his heart to slow down. He'd opened the door and found the housekeeper walking right towards him. She'd probably heard his and Chris's voices and gone to investigate.

Speaking of Chris… Wyatt looked behind him and found no trace of his brother. Cursing, the blond ran a hand through his hair and surveyed the room he was in. It was a bedroom. The shutters were closed in here, too, and he could just about make out a dominating, four-posted bed that would probably take up about half of his and Chris's apartment, let alone his bedroom. Garish orange phials of pills were set out in regimental rows on the nightstand and two empty glasses and an empty pitcher stood on a silver tray on an end table near the bed.

The blond casually strolled towards the side of the bed and picked up the pill bottles, examining the labels. A few were painkillers that he recognised, the rest were mostly undecipherable to anyone who wasn't a med school graduate. He walked around the bed and began opening the drawers in the nightstand aimlessly. The top two drawers had nothing in them that he wouldn't expect an old man to keep in his drawers, but the third one contained an enormous pile of papers that filled the entire drawer.

He frowned and reached down to fish a wad from the top of the pile out. He flicked through them quickly, holding various items of interest up to what little light there was. Most of them were medical and doctors' bills, all on headed hospital paper. Various treatments and courses leapt out at him, but they appeared before his eyes in the same jumbled string of letters as the names on the pill bottles.

He sighed, reflecting on what the last months of this man's life must have been like, being shunted from doctor to doctor, clinic to clinic, treatment to treatment… He stacked the papers as neatly as he could manage using his lap and put them back in the bottom drawer, sliding it closed and sitting down on the bed behind him. The mattress squeaked.

Under the bedside cabinet, he spotted the corner of what looked like a magazine poking out. Frowning, he leant down and dragged it out onto the carpet, his face clearing and then registering mild surprise when he discovered that it was the latest swimsuit edition of _Sports Illustrated. _Flipping quickly through the magazine he cracked a wide grin and nodded in approval. Suddenly catching a glimpse of his watch, he leapt up from the bed in a panic. He gave a quick salute of thanks with the folded magazine, shoved it in his back pocket, locked onto Chris and orbed.

_**Out On Our Own Now**_

"When I said 'Orb' I meant follow my lead," Wyatt said grumpily as he reappeared. "I didn't mean, 'Run off to another part of the house without me and get lost'. Just so you know in the future."

Chris rolled his eyes, not looking up from the old, thick tome that was open in front of him. He was surrounded in a pool of dim light thrown from a brass desk lamp with a translucent green shade and was studying the book intently. "My random orbing turned up something useful. What did yours turn up?" he asked.

Wyatt reached behind his back and pulled out the magazine proudly. "I found out that this old dude still had it in him, which…" He pulled a face, looking down at the magazine. "Is actually kind of creepy, now I think about it," he admitted.

Chris looked up from the book for the first time to take in the magazine. "You _stole _a dead guy's copy of _Sports Illustrated?_" he asked in disbelief. "Wow. I think we've just found a new moral low ground," the brunette ended dryly.

Wyatt pouted and shoved the magazine back into his pocket. "It's the swimsuit edition," he informed Chris defensively, sniffing and straightening his jacket. "So, my trusty sidekick," he finally said. "What have you got there?"

"A book," Chris replied vaguely, back to concentrating intently.

"Well, yeah," Wyatt duhed, looking around at the towering, dark wood shelves and the rolling ladder set up to run all of the way around the room. Marble busts took up some of the shelf space and the long work desk that Chris was sitting at took up the centre of the room. "It _is_ a library." He sat down on an overstuffed armchair, releasing a cloud of dust into the dingy air. "Wow. She wasn't much of a housekeeper if this was the state in which she kept the house…" the blond noted distastefully, clearing his throat as the motes of dust tickled the back of his throat.

"It was right here on the table, though," Chris persisted, turning the page and frowning thoughtfully. "Not on the shelf. It's like someone's used it recently." He glanced up at Wyatt, then rolled his eyes to see his brother picking a clock made of a gold metal and glass and tipping it upside down to look at the bottom. "Are you going to put that in your pocket, too?" the brunette asked pointedly, evidently channelling his mother to such an extent that Wyatt physically jumped and nearly dropped the clock.

"I'm just looking. Jeez, Chris. No need to give me the third degree and slash or a coronary." He set the clock back down on the mantelpiece and then caught a look at the time on the face. "Crap!" he hissed, frantically ripping up his sleeve so he could check the time on his watch. "Crap!" he cursed again. "Oh my God. Lunch is done with. I've gotta get back."

"What? You can't bail now!" Chris yelled accusingly, getting to his feet. "This could be important! Could stop some major magical murders, you know? I'm gonna need more time to read this thing, but it's kind of like a family history book. Kind of. With magical references. I think this guy may have been a witch. Which explains why he was killed, right? They're going on a murderous rampage after male witches?"

Wyatt shook his head. "No. The guy was sick, Chris. I mean really, really sick. I ended up in his bedroom when I orbed. A million phials of pills, medical bills… Something killed him, but it wasn't this cult. Just a bunch of diseases and being old, I guess."

Something sparked behind Chris's eyes and the brunette snapped his fingers, pointing at Wyatt seemingly without realising that he was doing it. "So… he dies, the athame is released from his care, ends up in the museum, gets stolen and is used to kill people, right?" he summarised quickly, his words tumbling out of his mouth. "All within a week of his death. It sounds to me like your basic bloodline binding ritual to me. The athame had to have been safe all of these years, or it would have been stolen before now and used for murders, right? He didn't leave a direct heir, so there was no one in the bloodline to protect the athame anymore. That's how they stole it back."

"So they need their athame to do the killings… Does that mean if we find the athame, the killings will stop?" Wyatt asked.

Chris nodded, flipping over a page. "I think so, I mean— Oh." He paused, gnawing on his bottom lip as his eyes scanned the pages. "Yeah," he said quietly, his voice slightly shaky. "We need to find the athame. And quickly."

"What's the rush?" Wyatt asked concernedly, the change in Chris's demeanour worrying him. "What's going on?"

Chris moistened his lips with his tongue before speaking, then stared at his brother with his bottom lip trapped between his teeth. Eventually, he swallowed and said, "We need to find the athame because, if they're doing what I think they're doing, then sticking the athame into the Twice Blessed witch is pretty high on their list of priorities. These murders? You're next."

Wyatt blinked, his mouth opening slightly in shock. He blew air out through his lips and ran a hand through his hair, his brain desperately trying to process the information that, at any second, he could be subject to kidnap which would probably lead to his murder.

_**Out On Our Own Now**_

"Okay, I'll see you at five," Wyatt told Chris as they appeared in their apartment, checking his watch frantically. "Well, five-ish. It depends if they find something else that they want me to fix," he added darkly, wrinkling his nose in distaste.

"What, you're going to work?!" Chris yelped in disbelief. "After I just predicted your murder sometime in the near future, you're going back to the office?"

"Chris, if eating is important to you then I've got to go back there. They _pay _me, remember? Besides, if any of these demons turn up, I'll blast them," he said nonchalantly, shrugging. "Okay? I'll be fine. Sit tight, quit channelling Mom, and when I get back we'll sort this. I promise." He clapped a hand onto Chris's shoulder, stared his baby brother in the eyes and then orbed out.

"Hey, wait!" Chris yelled to the departing orbs, but to no avail. He sighed in annoyance and looked down at the huge book he'd taken from the guy's house, which was still clutched in his arms. He figured that the guy wasn't going to need it anymore, and there was no way he was going to get time to read it with the housekeeper prowling around and poking her nose in everywhere, so he'd taken it with them. There had been useful stuff in there about this whole messy situation in it and all he had had time to do was take a quick glance through it, which wasn't going to help them solve it. Reading it in depth was.

After glaring once more at the space his departed brother had occupied, he sat down on the couch reluctantly and flipped open the book, flicking past pages so rapidly that they were a blur to try and find the place he'd been at just before they'd orbed out of the mansion. Suddenly, the pages turned unevenly and the brunette frowned, slowly turning back to the irregularity and finding a slip of paper torn from a notebook in there. Pulling it out, he looked it over and grinned, setting the book down on the coffee table and crossing to the kitchen, where he put their heaviest potion pot on the stove.

_**Out On Our Own Now**_

The explosion blinded him. A combination of the bright flash and the seemingly-noxious smoke blasting into his face rendered him temporarily sightless and he stepped backwards quickly, his eyes running, fanning at the air and choking.

"Hey. Wow. You know, when it smells like that, I think it's a sign you've cooked it too much," a wry voice said from the door, making Chris jump.

The witch-whitelighter rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, trying to calm his heartbeat down. When his vision cleared, he saw Parker standing at the doorway, grimacing at the fumes in the room. "Parker. What are you doing here?"

"Oh," he began, stuttering slightly at Chris's demanding question. He looked uncomfortable. "The door was unlocked. Um, me? What am I doing here? Nothing. Not really. I can go, if that's what you want." He jerked his thumb backwards towards the door and turned to leave.

"Oh, God, no," Chris insisted, walking over to him. "Sorry. I was a little bit… distracted. As you can probably see. By my, uh, cooking disaster. I'll go and turn that off before the whole building goes up and be right with you."

"What were you trying to make?" Parker inquired interestedly, following Chris into the kitchen and peering into the pot with distaste. "Wow. Primordial ooze?" he asked incredulously, stirring the potion with the spoon Chris had left in there. "If you weren't aiming for it, you got it. That's fairly impressive."

"Oh, no, it was, uh, soup," Chris lied quickly. "Or, you know, supposed to be." He spotted the open book which he'd taken from the old man's house and surreptitiously slipped around the counter into the living area to slide the book onto the floor and underneath the couch.

"Oh!" Parker exclaimed suddenly, turning to Chris, still holding the dripping potion spoon in his hand. "Jeez. Sorry. I meant to tell you this. I was taking a look around after you'd gone and it turns out the both murders were committed with that same knife. The one that was stolen from the museum. They just uploaded the coroners' report that said the stab wound on both of the guys matched the imprint exactly that the museum took when they first got the knife in. I guess whoever this is has killed twice now."

"Twice?" Chris asked faintly, the words ringing in his ears. He slid the book back out from under the couch and leafed through it so frantically that he tore one of the delicate parchment pages. Eventually, he came to the part he had been reading in the house and stopped. It described the ritual the demons needed to perform in order to come back to their full strength. They had to kill three witches and then the Twice Blessed witch — Wyatt.

It was like having curtains ripped away from a window when it was as bright as noon outside. Suddenly, blindingly, glaringly, it was obvious what they were planning to do. It had been happening his whole life. A demon would want to get to Wyatt and would see that the best way to do that would be through him, Chris. They needed three dead witches and then a dead Wyatt. If they needed to go after Wyatt, then why not kill two birds with one stone and kill the remaining witch, him, and then Wyatt?

"You've got to get out of here," the witch-whitelighter said suddenly, jumping up from the couch. "Sorry, Parker. You've gotta go now. It's not safe."

Parker was still examining the contents of the potion, using the spoon to dig out various ingredients that had remained solid, like the sliced ginger root and the delicate, purple petals of monkshood that were floating on top. "What the hell kind of soup was this?" he asked jokingly. "I think there are flowers in here. No wonder it didn't go so well."

"Look, Parker, I'm sorry. Something's come up. Something is going to happen and— Crap." Inwardly, Chris cursed. Why hadn't he figured this out sooner? Why had he invited Parker in when he was in the middle of making a potion in the first place? Now a demon had turned up and Parker was right there in front of them, ready to get hurt and learn their secret.

The blonde demon made a lunge for Parker, who gave a startled yelp and dropped the spoon, managing to neatly sidestep the attack and cross the kitchen in the same move so that he was standing where the demon had appeared and the demon was standing at the stove. "Where the hell did you come from?" he asked, backing up against the counter. He began fumbling down the neck of his shirt, but the demon lunged at him again. He transferred his weight to his hands, which were leaning on the counter, and used this leverage to lift his legs from the ground and snap a powerful, two-footed kick at the demons chest. She was knocked clean off her feet and came crashing down in the living area on top of a pile of boxes.

"Parker—" Chris began, looking over at the other man with a million words buzzing through his head, trying desperately to string them together in the form of an explanation.

"Don't," Parker snarled, his eyes seething with hatred. "Don't. Don't try to explain yourself." He produced a small black device with a red button on it from inside his shirt. It was hanging on a cord around his neck. "I actually thought we were friends, you know that? Guess not. What, you pretended to like me so you could lure me into your apartment and ambush me? I can't believe I've been so stupid…"

"Parker, I don't know what you're talking about," Chris said truthfully, taken aback by his new friend's sudden anger and animosity towards him. "I don't know who she is, or how she got here. I swear." Okay, so the second part was a lie. But that didn't make him a bad person, right?

"Bull," Parker snapped. "What, you think I don't know an abduction attempt when I see one? Trust me," he added darkly, his voice tinged with regret. "This isn't my first time."

The blonde demon rolled over and fell off the boxes. Her body thudding to the floor was accompanied by the shifting of what sounded like broken crockery inside the box. Chris glanced down at her nervously, not sure how long she'd stay down.

"Honest to God, Parker, I have no idea what you mean," Chris said tersely as the blonde began to get up. "I am as lost here as you are. Maybe you should get out of here?"

Parker blinked, the anger almost immediately sliding off his face. "What?" he asked, completely floored and obviously now as confused as Chris had been earlier. "You mean… _leave_?"

"Go!" Chris yelled as the blonde got to her feet at last. "Get the hell out of here!" He charged at the demon, pumping his arms at his sides. He crossed the small distance between them in a flash, leaping the last foot with his arms out to tackle her to the ground but she was ready and grabbed him by the shirt mid flight, ripping the fabric and popping some of the buttons off. She lifted him so he was suspended in midair and, with an amused quirk of her eyebrow at his stunned expression, she tossed him backwards into the wall.

"Oh my God," Parker breathed, his eyes widening as they took in the dent Chris's body had made in the drywall and the crumpled witch-whitelighter, who was lying in a groaning heap on the carpet.

The demon's head whipped around and she smirked at Parker. "Right. Now that little distraction is out of the way…" she tilted her head coyly. "It's your turn. I must say, that kick hurt like a son-of-a-bitch, so I don't know how gentle I'm gonna be with you, sadly. Although, I expected more from a Halliwell, so I know that you let me off lightly." She advanced towards him.

"Whoa. Whoa, whoa. Slow down there," Parker commanded, pointing at her and flashing a nervous smile. "One: Not a Halliwell." He picked up the device around his neck and gestured to it. "Two: This is a panic button. If I press it, five armed men are paid to come running. Still a good idea to attack me?"

The blonde laughed. "Oh, funny. One: If you're not a Halliwell, what are you doing standing at the stove mixing a potion to kill me?" she asked, tilting her head and puckering her lips slightly. "That's not very friendly, is it? It's also not very sensible to deny you're a filthy witch when, with my own eyes, I saw what you were doing. And Two: Even if that is a panic button, bring the men on. I like armed men." She crinkled her nose. "They think they're invincible." She crossed the rest of the space between them and Parker shifted his thumb so that it hovered above the red button. "It makes it that much better when I tear them apart with my bare hands, just to hear them scream," she whispered sensually in his ear, backing off slightly and smiling at him. "I've had enough of this now. I'm sick of all of this playing around. All we want is for you to yell nice and loud for your brother, and then die quickly. Think you can manage that?"

"'We'?" Parker echoed confusedly, searching her face.

"Yes. We," two voices informed him in unison. The other two demons appeared on either side of him.

"Let's play," the brunette said coyly, alluringly withdrawing the largest knife from a knife block in a box at her feet. She smiled and gently dragged the point across Parker's throat. "But we'll use my toys, not yours. Drop it," she ended on a snarl.

Parker let the panic button fall to his chest, and then closed his eyes and gave a sharp intake of breath as she made a violent slashing motion to the side. He opened his eyes as a small, plastic clatter sounded and looked down to find that she'd merely sliced the panic button from his neck and not through his jugular as he had expected.

"We'll use my toys, though," the brunette continued, smashing the button with her heel. "Not yours. Does that work for you?"

"Who are you?" Parker asked, his dry mouth barely able to force words out.

The raven-haired demon smiled, speaking for the first time. She tilted her head. "Probably the last pretty face you'll ever see," she said sweetly, smiling serenely as she backhanded Parker to the floor. "So make the most of it," she commanded severely, the change in the tone of her voice making her sound extra menacing. She and her sisters crossed the room, leaving Parker to gingerly nurse a bloody cheek and nose on the cold kitchen tiles with the back of his hand, watching their retreating backs with wide, fearful eyes.


	5. Chapter 4

Parker snorted and the immediately gagged as blood from his nose began to slide down his throat. The bitter tang of copper spread across his taste buds and he tilted his head forward to stem the tide of blood trickling down into his stomach. Instead, the blood continued to ooze steadily from both nostrils, staining his jeans with nearly-black drops. He glanced helplessly at the scattered fragments of the button that had been hanging around his neck and then snuck a peek from under his lashes at the three women in the apartment. The blonde was lounging casually against the kitchen counter, inspecting her nails and the two other demons were sneering into the pot of… _whatever _it was that Chris had been concocting on a stove. A potion? Seriously? His head swam with the mere thought that something like a potion could be real, but that might have more to do with the blood currently spotting the tile beneath him than realisation.

This was insane. This whole thing was insane. Had he hit his head at some point, was that it? Was this entire thing just some kind of hideous dream? He closed his eyes and immediately it felt as if someone had jammed a pencil into his left cheekbone. He hissed, the pain revealing to him that this was very, very real.

"I was always told that the Halliwell brothers could _feel _each other," the black-haired woman spat disappointedly, glancing over at Parker. "This is taking to long."

"It's been five hundred years, Tamara," the blonde said, piercing the other demon with her icy blue stare over the top of her nails. "Five hundred freaking years I've had to put up with your _complaining _and now we're as close as we are you're _still _doing it?"

"I want my powers back," Tamara replied frigidly, stepping away from the stove as the tension in the air mounted. "This… _body. _This pathetic, weak, human form sickens me and I can already feel myself shedding it. I want my powers back and I want them back _now._ And I'm going to get them." She turned and her eyes alighted on Parker, her face twisting into an evil, lopsided smile. "With me, Desdemona?"

The brunette, silent in the argument until now, took a quick glance at her blonde companion before speaking. The demon showed no signs of outward argument with the plan and so she smiled, trapping her bottom lip coyly with her front teeth. "Yeah," she agreed, a serene smile spreading over her features as she turned towards Parker. "Let's… _play._"

_**Out On Our Own Now**_

Chris didn't know what had woken him. The painful itching in his eye made the throbbing of his head worse, but there was something else that was slowly filtering into his brain, something… Yelling. He could hear yelling. And sounds of pain… He raised a hand slowly to his eye and rubbed at it, finding it gritty with the dust from the plaster. He rubbed at it some more and blinked, and a single tear rolled out of the corner of his irritated eye, tainted white with the dust, his body wanting his eye cleared as much as he did.

"I DON'T KNOW. I'VE TOLD YOU!"

The sound of flesh colliding with flesh woke Chris up fully. He pulled himself up through the grey haze currently choking his entire body and sat up fully, looking into the kitchenette. Sitting on the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room with her back to him was the blonde demon, casually observing her fellow demons who were apparently laying into Parker, also with their backs to Chris.

"I don't even _have _a brother!" Parker yelped in further protest. "What are you doing this to me for?"

Chris swallowed, wincing as one of the demons hit Parker again. He slowly climbed to his feet, keeping his gaze focussing intently on the demons' backs to check their reaction to his movement. So far, it seemed, they hadn't noticed. He let out a tense breath that he didn't realise that he had been holding and licked his lips nervously, trying desperately to formulate a plan of attack. What could he do?

Suddenly, the blonde sitting on the counter turned and her eyes locked fully with his. His mind made up for him, Chris flung out an arm and swept her off the counter and into the wall. The other two demons turned sharply, gaping slightly at Chris.

"_He's _the witch!" the blonde shrieked, clambering painfully to her feet. "Get HIM."

Chris's eyes widened. He hadn't bargained for the fact that all three of them would attack him at once. He swallowed, holding out his hands and backing away slightly. "Okay, look, can we talk about this?" he tried hopefully and weakly. "I mean, I'm not so bad once you get to know me. And I'm sure you're really nice behind the murdering and the evil." Desdemona charged at him suddenly, and with reflexes honed by being a constant duck in a shooting gallery for energy balls throughout his youth, Chris threw himself sideways at the last minute onto the floor and kicked at the demon's ankle, knocking her legs out from under her. Springing back to his feet, he telekinetically threw Tamara into the door to the apartment, the impact making it crunch dangerously in its frame. He raised his arm again but Desdemona grabbed him around the legs, sending him toppling forwards into the coffee table face first.

Stars burst through his head at the impact his chin made with the wood and his body went momentarily limp, giving Desdemona enough time to flip him so that he was face up and pin him to the tabletop. He struggled but she was strong and her fingers dug into his shoulders as if they were made of steel. He could feel them pressing on his tendons and he screwed up his face in pain, quickly stopping his protests.

The blonde demon was back with the knife he recognised from their set. She grinned maliciously, standing over him with the blade glinting dully. "Don't worry, Chris. We're doing to make this as fast as possible. Sadly, the planets won't wait, not even for us. We're running out of time. We need to kill you, kill your brother and ascend before we have to wait another five hundred years. And let me tell you. We're not patient people."

Although the blade of the knife took up most of his attention, he could see Tamara, from the corner of his eyes, walking around the circle and placing things on the floor. When she was done, she stepped into the circle just as a network of dark purple magic flared momentarily over them, sparking malignantly before disappearing again.

His heart rate went through the roof as he realised that they had made sure that orbing was out of the question. He swallowed, exhaling shakily and trying to think. Suddenly, the blonde brought the knife down quickly and Chris gasped, his mouth going dry as he resumed his struggling, knowing that it was useless. He closed his eyes, as if that could do something to protect him. The angry hiss of tearing fabric stunned him, and his eyes snapped open to reveal that she was simply slicing his shirt into strips. She tossed two of the strips to Tamara, who began tying his wrists to the legs of the coffee table and used another two to tie his feet to the remaining two legs. Satisfied, Desdemona let go of him, going to stand next to the blonde.

"Call for your brother," the blonde demanded coolly, glaring hatefully at him.

Chris made a thoughtful face. "You know, I've been thinking about that. You need to kill him. Before this planetary alignment thing becomes less aligned, right? So to do that, you'd need him here. And if he's not here, then you can't kill him, you don't ascend and we all live happily ever after. So, I've decided that I won't be calling for him. How does that sound?" Chris saw the blonde's hands tighten into fists and she was about to answer when she was interrupted.

A cloud of orbing lights had appeared in the middle of the room, and they cheerfully called, "Hey, Lucy. I'm home!"

Chris took only a split second to sigh inwardly about the lameness of his brother's ancient pop-culture reference before cursing and thrashing against his bonds. "Wyatt! Get out of here! Orb out!" he yelled, one end of the table lifting off the ground and then slamming back down with the force of his struggling.

"Wow. That has got to be the least enthusiastic greeting ever," Wyatt said as he formed fully. "I even got takeout, and you're _still _pissed at me? Why—" The swarm of lights surrounding him finally faded and he was able to finally see the room, instead of the dim shapes that the glare of orbing turned everything into. "Oh." He put the white cardboard boxes down on the floor next to his feet and straightened up again. "So, trying to kill my brother, huh?" he said, walking forwards and folding his arms across his chest. "Just a quick tip: No demon has managed it yet." He suddenly swung his arm out savagely, directing a searing arc of energy towards the demons standing over his brother.

"DUCK, you idiot!" Chris yelled, yanking at the strips of material tying him down again. He was momentarily blinded and could see nothing but purple stars as the cage around him flared brightly, crackling with sparks as it rebuffed Wyatt's magical assault and threw it back at him. He screwed his eyes closed against the glare, opening them just in time to see Wyatt slamming into the wall and hitting the floor face first.

"Kill him," the blonde demon said coldly, gesturing at Chris. "I don't think the Twice Blessed one is going to put up much of a fight now, do you?" She smirked at Chris and blew the white-whitelighter a kiss before stalking across the room, passing through the cage with ease and standing next to Wyatt. She kicked him, limply rolling him onto his back. His mouth was gaping open, and blood was oozing thickly from one of his nostrils and the corner of his mouth.

"Wyatt…" Chris whispered, his mouth dry, desperately looking for the rise and fall of his brother's chest.

Parker could hear blood pounding in his ears and he clenched his fists and swallowed hard, trying to quell the adrenaline pulsing through his system. Forcing himself to breathe, he looked across the room and, as inconspicuously as he could, pulled himself to his feet using the counter above him. No one noticed and his eyes darted wildly around the kitchen, searching desperately for a weapon. He had to get out of here. He had to get away from these… _people_ and whoever the hell they were. Or _what_ever the hell they were, he corrected himself bitterly, catching the flaring of an enormous purple force field and the newly-arrived blond guy being catapulted backwards into the wall. What was this, some genetic mutations convention?

He gently eased open the drawer nearest to him, keeping half an eye on the action. He cursed when he realised that the drawer was empty, and moved onto the next one. Empty again. The kitchen was normally such a good source of weaponry, but they obviously hadn't unpacked yet and anything useful would be in the boxes he could see scattered in stacks around the apartment. His eyes swept the kitchen again and alighted on the pot Chris had been stirring earlier. A potion? Was that what he said? The sheer ridiculousness of the fact that there could be such a thing as potions left him as the blonde demon stalked across the room towards who he assumed was Chris's brother and rolled him over with her foot. This was going to work. It had to.

"Wyatt! Wyatt, wake up. Wake up!" Chris yelled at his brother and Desdemona raised the knife above her head. "Wyatt!" He shouted desperately, trying so desperately to break free that he felt his left shoulder tear from its socket. Crippling pain shot through his left side and he fought back a scream of pain. "Dammit, I'm not in the mood to die today! A little HELP here?" he pleaded desperately, fear and pain tingeing his voice as Desdemona came closer with the knife. "WYATT!"

Suddenly, the Twice Blessed witch sprang from his inertia and tackled the blonde demon around the knees, throwing her to the carpet. Trying desperately to pin the bucking demon down with most of his bodyweight, he gestured at the cage and orbed a crystal from the perimeter towards him, shattering it on the wall above his head. "NOW!" he bellowed, stabbing his finger in the direction of Desdemona and Tamara. "DO IT!"

Parker whipped his head around, staring at Wyatt. "What?" he asked. "Are you talking to me?"

"No, I'm yelling at the Easter Bunny. THROW THE POTION!" he grunted out, suddenly being flipped off the demon underneath him onto his back.

Parker looked down and seized the handles of the pot and lifted it, spinning slightly to gain momentum and hurling it into the air. Time seemed to slow as the pot arced across the apartment. He saw with the tiniest detail as it began to turn over, and potion started to slosh out from inside. The heavy metal hit Desdemona full on in the face, knocking her backwards and causing her to drop the knife and fall to the floor. The impact sent potion gushing from the pot, soaking Desdemona and Tamara.

Time returned to normal and Parker punched the air triumphantly, not entirely sure what he had done.

Suddenly, both of the demons began to scream as their flesh bubbled. Their forms distorted as they slowly began to shed their human demeanour, seemingly sprouting from the flesh as green-scaled demons tore their way out. But fire was already kindling at their feet. Their unearthly screeches filled the apartment as they desperately tried to claw their way out of their fate before succumbing to the flames engulfing them, and disappearing with an explosion and a fine sprinkling of ash.

"NO!" the blonde demon screamed. "NO! No one has EVER been able to defeat us before! No one!"

"Well, point to the good guys," Wyatt said with a shrug. "Don't forget to write to us from the Wasteland," he snarled, flicking a wrist and telekinetically grabbing the knife that Desdemona had dropped and running the demon in front of him through with it, so that the blade emerged from the front of her chest and stuck, quivering, in the wall.

She looked down at the gaping wound in her chest, momentarily surprised, before the roar of flames burst from the hole and she was gone in a _whoosh _of flames and a loud explosion that rattled the windows in their frames.

"What _are _you?" Parker gasped, staring at the scorch mark that showed the last place the demon had been standing.

"Look, listen—" Wyatt began, turning to Parker.

The mortal shook his head, holding out a hand. "No, no. I'm not listening. I'm leaving. I am getting out of here." He quickly rounded the counter that separated the kitchenette from the living area and made for the door as fast as he could.

"Wait, at least let me heal you," Wyatt suggested, taking a step towards the feeling man.

"_Heal_… heal…" He put a hand to his forehead as if he were feeling dizzy, his resolve immediately strengthening as Wyatt took another step closer. "NO. I'm leaving. Goodbye." He wrenched open the door and, slamming it behind him, was gone.

_**Out On Our Own Now**_

"That was a pretty eventful week," Chris said, dropping into an armchair and draping himself over it. "Let's not have another one like it for about fifty years, kay?"

"Really? But I'm in such a hurry to do it all again!" Wyatt replied sarcastically, stretching and yawning. "I have a plan. Let's not tell Mom. She'll freak out and we'll be living back at the Manor until we're thirty."

"Thirty? More like forty-five. We've gotta be there long enough for our kids to grow up with her neuroses, too, so she won't feel alone."

"Hey, I'm going to give any kinds of mine her neuroses anyway. The suffering should no way in hell stop with our generation… You did a good job here, by the way. You'd never guess we had full-out war in here."

Chris shrugged. "I took a leaf out of Aunt Paige's book and Object of Obejectioned everything's ass. Wake me when the personal gain hits, won't you?" He closed his eyes and snuggled down deeper into the chair, enjoying the warmth of the sunshine spilling in the windows and across his face.

Wyatt frowned and picked up a throw cushion and tossed it at his brother, grinning as it hit him in the stomach and forced the air out of him. "Dude, you can't sleep yet. You've gotta make dinner."

Chris looked up and scowled at the blond, before closing his eyes again. "You make it," he said sleepily. "I'm tired."

Wyatt smiled. "Fine. My famous mac and cheese it is, then?"

Chris's eyes snapped open. "I'll cook," he said immediately, pulling himself out of the armchair. "I said 'Make dinner'. I didn't ask you to poison us both," he groused, the memory of Wyatt's mac and cheese still fresh enough in his mind to bring about his gag reflex. He walked into the kitchenette and opened the fridge, staring at the contents and wondering what to cook.

"Have you seen Parker recently?" Wyatt asked conversationally as his brother rummaged in the depths of the fridge.

"I haven't seen him since the demon thing. Didn't you notice that he was just a touch freaked out?" He paused. "How do you feel about lasagne?"

"I feel that, should you make lasagne, I would love you forever," Wyatt said happily, turning around on the couch as his brother got ready to cook. "Do you think he'll… you know. Tell anyone?" he asked nervously.

Chris snorted. "You mean that he met two brothers with magical powers, was mistaken for one of them and tortured by three supernatural beings hell-bent on destroying the two brothers, and then personally killed two of the demons with a potion concocted by the much better-looking, smarter brother and then watched as the dumber, uglier brother ran the last one through with the kitchen knife they were going to use on him?"

Wyatt blinked as Chris tore open a packet of minced beef. "Uh, yeah. That."

The brunette looked up pointedly at Wyatt and asked, "Would you tell anyone?"

"Touché," Wyatt mumbled, staring off into space. Suddenly, something seemed to click in his head and he demanded, "Hey! Who are you calling dumb?"

"I rest my case," Chris said quietly, bending down to dig a pan out of the cupboard.

_**Out On Our Own Now**_

Richard Saltzman was a balding, middle-aged man who carried a lot of extra weight around with him. He had been the Superintendent of Wyatt and Chris's building for fourteen years and lived in his own bottom floor apartment, which he unlocked now and walked in, his nose buried deep in the letters he was sifting through. He had just picked them up and was casually checking the addresses and envelope types as a quick way of determining what was in them. He closed the door behind him with his foot and tossed the small bundle of letters onto the table to his right.

He made for the couch, and was about to sink into it when the creak of a shifting floorboard sounded from his bedroom. His head whipped around and he struggled back to his feet. The door to his bedroom was ajar.

"Hello? Is there someone back there?"

There was a small cabinet against the same wall as his bedroom door. He bent over and opened the bottom half of it, pulling out a small, snub-nosed revolver. He checked the chamber, snapped it closed and cocked the weapon, holding it before him as crept towards his bedroom door.

"I warn you, I'm armed!" It wouldn't be the first time his apartment had been broken into, being on the first floor as it was. Rochester was a large city. There was going to be some crime. Luckily, he had more sense than to just leave valuables lying around, and no one had ever managed to take anything significant from the burglaries anyway. He didn't get out much more, anyway. Let them break in when he was here. Let them break in when he was armed.

He burst into the bedroom, waving the revolver in an amateurish way, holding the gun with just one hand and pointing it frenziedly about the room. It was empty. He lowered the gun, looking around, confused, and then began to laugh at himself. He shook his head. He was a stupid man. A stupid, paranoid man. He turned to go back to the living room and put the gun away when a dark blur shot across the corner of his vision. He was just turning and raising the gun when he felt hands on either side of his head, and then an audible snap burst through the bedroom and he crumpled to the floor, never to feel anything again.

The woman that had broken Richard's neck smirked down at the revolver, which was lying inches from his outstretched hand on the bedroom carpet. She picked it up and examined it, turning it over in her hands. "Cute," she deadpanned, tossing the weapon onto the bed. She looked down at the glassy, lifeless eyes of the Superintendent and sneered.

She closed her eyes and the air around her shimmered, and suddenly an exact double of Richard Saltzman was standing in the bedroom, staring down at his own corpse, which he stepped over in order to look in the mirror above the dresser.

The doppelganger turned in front of the mirror, looking at itself from every angle, prodding various bodyparts and sneered again. "No one told me I was going to have to go undercover and look like _this_," the double said in complete disgust, finally walking away from the mirror. The demon imitating Richard Saltzman pulled his face into a wide rictus and stepped over the corpse on the bedroom floor again, entering the living area.

"Well done, Katyana," a voice said. There was another demon standing in the kitchen. "Very clean. Now we have our feet under the table, let's start phase two of the plan, shall we?"

"The witches," Katyana said sinisterly. "Yes, sir. I'll start right away."

"Don't let us down," the demon said, and shimmered out.

Katyana was left looking around the empty apartment that she was now going to be calling home.

* * *

**The End.**

**To be honest, I sort of forgot that I was still writing this and only found the half-completed chapter when I was looking for something else. Whoops. But I feel that I've at least fulfilled my duty by finishing it, even if y'all don't remember how it began. Hell, I don't remember how it began, but there we are. Anyway, adios.**

_**Twisted Flame.**_


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